UNLV mechanical engineering professor Brendan O'Toole has been named the 1996 Nevada Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
O'Toole, who joined the UNLV faculty in 1992, has received four other teaching awards, including the Alex G. and Faye Spanos Teaching Award from UNLV and the Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award from the Society of Automotive Engineers.
He has taught nine different undergraduate and graduate courses in the field of engineering and authored some 20 scholarly publications, many on the subject of applications for composite materials.
O'Toole has also served as a faculty adviser to teams of students who have won regional and national engineering design competitions. He was one of the faculty advisers to a team that set a record - and took first place in the 1995 Society for Automotive Engineers West Coast Supermileage Competition - by designing and building a vehicle that got 3,470 miles per gallon.
Another of his teams took first place in the American Society for Mechanical Engineers Region IX Human-Powered Vehicle Design Competition, also in 1995.
O'Toole, who received his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees from the University of Delaware, is a member of numerous professional and university organizations. He has also served as a consultant to several private companies.
The Professor of the Year program, which was started in 1981, salutes the most outstanding undergraduate instructors in the country. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching sponsors an annual national competition from which the state winners are also selected; 585 candidates were nominated for this year's U.S. competition.
Each candidate must be nominated for the award by his or her institution and receive letters of support from current or former students, colleagues, and presidents or academic deans. Judging of the competition takes place in several stages.
Award recipients were selected on the basis of the following criteria: service to students, institutions, community, and the profession; teaching informed by scholarship; impact on and involvement with students; and support from colleagues and current and former undergraduate students.
In a personal statement he was asked to submit with his entry form, O'Toole attempted to describe his approach to teaching.
"I feel it is my responsibility to motivate my students to ask questions because we all learn at a different pace," he wrote. "I listen and respond to any question, no matter how trivial it might seem. I don't want to discourage anyone from asking questions because one of the most effective ways to learn any new topic is to have a discussion about it with someone who knows it very well.
"I also try to provide students some of the educational opportunities which I regretted not having as an undergraduate. And I try to emphasize to students that learning is a lifelong endeavor. I find myself learning new things all the time as I teach and conduct research."
