| That’s Right: The Engineers Left CAS |
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| Written by Kenneth Casperson | ||||
| Friday, 28 March 2008 | ||||
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Hard as some may find it to believe, the CAS building was found almost entirely devoid of engineers last Thursday – if only for about two hours. Despite the belief of some, the engineers can exist in the sun – oh, wait, the event they left the warmth of CAS to go to was also inside. Never mind. In truth, the exodus was to the annual recognition banquet, hosted by such illustrious names are Morrie Walworth (the dean of the engineering department) and with awards presented by... other professors no one outside of the engineering department has heard of. Perhaps the event is less illustrious than one might hope – but that isn’t the point. The point of the banquet was, as the title might suggest – recognition. The one time out of the year set aside for engineers to get together and recognize professors who inspired them (or didn’t – more on that later), and for professors to recognize the students who returned the favor. Strangely, however, awards given to faculty may or may not have been prestigious – or even well meant. As a rule, awards in the engineering department are done via the magical coin box method – the Little Screw award presented to whichever faculty member receives the most pennies in their box, and the Big Nut and Tool award presented to whoever receives the most nickels (it may seem that the latter is the most important given the difference in currency used, but assumptions like that are not exactly safe in this department). Professor Baumann received his fourth Little Screw award, which he was almost unhealthily pleased – it had many pretty blinking lights this year. Professor Andrew Jones, however, made out extremely well this year – taking home both the Big Resistor award (an award which is, quite literally, a massive resistor), as well as the Big Nut and Tool – an award which migrates from professor to professor each year, and due to the tradition that each recipient adds to the award in some way has grown into something of a monstrosity that can no longer be lifted. It is rumored that, in the hands of a professor as notorious for tinkering with electronics as Jones, that the Big Nut and Tool may represent a threat to national security by next year’s banquet. The rest of the night was passed with many free gift drawings donated by area businesses – the biggest being free concert tickets from the casino – and other entertainments, including the traditional comparison of the professors with (insert public or pop culture figure here – this year it was movie characters), as well as a spirited voice-over of a Dilbert cartoon by Dr. Walworth. At the end, most of the participants walked away somehow richer, whether in prizes, awards, or gratuitous food intake, laughs were had in abundance, and another year in engineering was (almost) brought to a close. There are, after all, still final projects to deal with, and it’s likely anyone hoping to see an engineer anywhere but inside CAS has missed their chance. There’s always next year...  Add as favourites (0)
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