Missouri Honor Award for Distinguished Service in Engineering
The awards are presented Friday evening of Engineers' Week at the Missouri Honor Awards Banquet. The Dean begins the ceremony and for each recipient, the citation is read, the award is presented, and a response is given. The presentation of five or more awards per year may be considered. Technical organizations and individuals are eligible to receive the awards. Nominations for the awards are received and reviewed by an anonymous awards committee of engineering alumni appointed by the Dean who serves as chair. The committee recommends nominations to the faculty for approval. The nominations are then submitted to the MU Chancellor for final approval. The Dean contacts the approved nominees and determines their ability to receive the award and participate in the ceremony.
The award is represented by a bronze medal (three and one half inches in diameter). It is engraved with the recipient's name and the year in which it was granted. The front of the medal is a laurel wreath encasing the words "University of Missouri" with the date 1839. Also on the medal are the recipient's name and the honor, "For Distinguished Service in Engineering." On the back are the words, "Engineering Foundation, College of Engineering" and the year in which the award was made. The Columns and the Engineering Building are also on the medal.
The qualifications for the awards are approximately as follows: Exceptional efforts by an individual or an organization to foster the professional development of young engineering college graduates; exceptional ability in the planning and direction of significant and important projects in technical engineering; exceptional contribution by an individual to technical engineering knowledge.
An annual publication called "The University of Missouri-Columbia Missouri Honor Awards for Distinguished Service in Engineering" is published soon after Engineers' Week. This publication gives a short account of the presentation ceremonies held during Engineers' Week and during the previous year, the citations and the membership list of the Engineering Foundation
History
In the spring of 1950, Dean Huber O. Croft appointed an awards committee of the faculty of the College of Engineering to study a means of recognizing and honoring the outstanding works of alumni and their colleagues in engineering. The committee consisted of J.R. Lorah, chemical engineering; D.L. Waidelich, electrical engineering; H.W. Wood, civil engineering; and R.L. Scorah, mechanical engineering.
After reviewing procedures for awards practices by other schools and many of the professional societies, and after consulting with the officeres of the Missouri Engineering Foundation and the Missouri Engineers' Club, the awards committee in the fall of 1950 recommended the plan now being followed.
The officers of the Missouri Engineering Foundation offered to support the plan financially after meetings were held in December 1950 and January 1951 to discuss the plan to select from sketches the design for the medal to be presented.At the meetings were L.A. Nickell, B.D. Simon Sr., C.W. Brown, L.W. Helmreich, Sam R. Rudder, R.E. Duffy, Dr. Scorah and Dean Croft.
The plan was submitted to the president of the University in the latter part of January, 1951, and was officially recognized by the University of Missouri Board of Curators at its March 8, 1951 meeting.