Richard
de Neufville Honored
with
2004 Joseph A. Martore Excellence
in Teaching Award
By
Lois
Slavin, ESD Communications Director
– October 12, 2004
ESD
Director Daniel Hastings has announced
that this year’s winner of the
Joseph
A. Martore Excellence in Teaching
Award is Professor
Richard de Neufville. The award
was established to recognize and honor
a full-time ESD faculty member who
has made outstanding contributions
to one of ESD’s academic programs
in the area of education and program
development.
In
reading from the nomination letters,
Hastings noted that de Neufville “was
specifically cited for founding MIT’s
Technology and Policy Program (TPP)
in the mid-1970s, his long-term teaching
of systems analysis in ESD, and his
current stewardship of the ESD graduate
committee.”
Hastings
went on to share the nominators’
thoughts in each of these areas.
“TPP,
which has been fundamental in the
intellectual development of ESD was,
at that time, a distinct outlier and
risky choice for Richard,” wrote
one colleague. “The integration
of concepts of advanced technology
with policy considerations was hardly
on the School of Engineering’s
agenda in the 1970’s.
“Even
in his home department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, a department
that then prided (and now prides)
itself on its forward thinking attitudes
toward policy issues, Richard’s
focus on TPP was treated with skepticism.
Now that Engineering Systems is fully
on the agenda of MT’s SoE at-large,
it is easy to forget the contribution
that Richard made over a 25 year period
as director of TPP in developing,
shaping, and serving as the intellectual
lightening rod for this program. He
has been successful against all odds…as
evidenced by the fact that TPP was
recognized with several Sizer awards
and over the years has built a substantial
cadre of distinguished graduates.
Faculty
members and colleagues also noted:
- “Richard’s
contributions to educational efforts
in the technology and policy regime
extend across the Atlantic as well.
He helped initiate several TPP-like
programs at the Delft Technical
University in the Netherlands, the
Instituto Superior Tecnico in Portugal,
and Cambridge University in the
U.K.
- “’Leader,
mentor, visionary’ are the
words that first come to mind when
reflecting on Richard's impact on
my personal MIT graduate education,
the Technology and Policy Program,
and the educational underpinnings
of the Engineering Systems Division.
Richard's leadership among colleagues
to offer an integrative educational
program to engineers and scientists
who wish to lead technological development
by implementing responsible policies
has resulted in the world’s
leading program in Technology and
Policy studies. Richard has individually
mentored close to 800 TPP graduates
and over 25 ESD students with lessons
of compassion, scholarship, wisdom,
and guidance - quite an accomplishment
indeed! Richard's vision for enhanced
education and scholarship within
MIT and at the global level, his
contagious energy, and his standards
of excellence are unequalled among
his peers.”
- “….I
can proudly point to my association
with Richard and to my association
with the astoundingly successful
students that the program has produced
over the years. There can be no
question that honoring Richard de
Neufville with the ESD Education
Award is appropriate and timely
and I support it wholeheartedly.”
- “….Richard
has taught engineering systems analysis
in the School of Engineering over
a period of three decades. His subject
1.146 was among the first engineering
school wide electives in the late
1970s…. now this subject is
a core requirement in TPP and is
taken by students all over MIT,
with enrollments often topping 100.
This is remarkable for a non-computer
subject. His text in support of
this subject is a standard in the
field and, during this very year,
Richard announced a substantial
renovation of book, reflecting the
emerging field of real options as
a way to measure the value of flexibility
in engineering design and indicative
of his continued interest in keeping
this material fresh and vital.”
-
Last year Richard took over the
chairmanship of the ESD education
committee and has shepherded the
committee through an extraordinary
set of tasks dealing with the intellectual
development and the administrative
rationalization of the ESD Ph.D.
program…. We now have a well-structured
doctoral program in place with strong
intellectual content and a clear
roadmap for students and faculty
to follow as they go through the
various steps in applying, formulating
a program, taking general exams,
and ultimately completing a dissertation.
This is no small feat. Starting
any program, essentially from scratch
is difficult - doctoral programs
are especially so, since faculty
feel so strongly about content given
their signature nature for academic
units. However, Richard persevered
and he has performed a critical
service for ESD in accomplishing
this task.”
De
Neufville received a plaque of appreciation
and a cash award of $1000.
|
