Besides a congratulatory trip to Washington, D.C., and meetings with the state’s congressional delegates last week, Dan Dolan said one of the best aspects of being named South Dakota’s 2009 Professor of the Year was meeting with other state winners.

“It’s incredibly humbling and incredibly invigorating,” said Dolan, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Center of Excellence for Advanced Manufacturing and Production (CAMP) at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

The award, presented by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, is recognized as one of the nation’s most prestigious awards honoring undergraduate teaching. Dolan was selected from nearly 300 top professors in the United States. This year, there are 38 state winners.

The professors were honored last week in Washington. All of the people he met approach education in a different way, he said, and he learned a few things.

“They’re all doing things a little bit differently,” he said. “They’re not just standing in front of the classroom and not just downloading information to students.”

The same could be said about Dolan, administrators at the School of         Mines say.

The U.S. Professors of the Year program salutes the most outstanding undergraduate instructors in the country — those who excel as teachers and influence the lives and careers of their students. Recipients are selected based on extraordinary dedication to undergraduate teaching, which is demonstrated by excellence in the following areas: impact on and involvement with undergraduate students; scholarly approach to teaching and learning; contribution to undergraduate education in the institution, community and profession; and support from colleagues and current and former undergraduate students.

“We are extremely proud of the recognition that Dr. Dolan has received and delighted that he has joined such an elite group of professors,” said Robert A. Wharton, president of School of Mines, after the announcement of the award last week. “This award is a well-deserved acknowledgement of Dr. Dolan’s dedication to teaching and his impact on the lives of so many students both in the classroom and through CAMP.”

CAMP is a competitive program that brings together students, faculty and industry leaders to partner on real-world projects. The program, established in 1997, allows students to work on multidisciplinary teaming to create engineering projects that will be judged at CAMP competitions regionally, nationally and internationally.

There are currently 13 projects, Dolan said, and the students work on the projects as small entrepreneurial businesses to develop research, team building and leadership skills.

Dolan said he finds joy in guiding the students to pull from several disciplines to accomplish their work, which is what they will face once they leave campus.

“We allow students, encourage students and work with students to bring out character,” he said. “(It’s) going beyond dealing with technical content, and asking how you best gain, apply and interact with other people.”

Dolan has grown with the students. His love of engineering began with an interest in cars and work as an engineer for General Motors, he said.

“I thought my passion in life was cars and engines,” he said. “But it developed more into the knowledge and research. Education has been a passion that’s been growing for years. Now I’m at a point with education where it’s interaction with the students outside the classroom, for development of teaming and leadership. The term holistic comes up a lot.”

And that includes teaching students, even when it’s not engineering. Dolan meets with students on Fridays for “afternoon guitar jam sessions.”

“It’s something to allow them to get away and use the other side of their brain a little bit,” he said.

Dolan said he plans on working with students as long as it continues to be fun.

“I could retire today, but will probably continue for 10 years,” he said, laughing. “As long as we’re making a difference, I’m going to be here.”

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com