Glenn Kraige of Blacksburg, Va., professor of engineering science and mechanics in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, was named to the W.S. "Pete" White Chair for Innovation in Engineering Education by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors during the board's spring meeting March 29.

The W.S. "Pete" White Chair for Innovation in Engineering Education was established by American Electric Power to honor Pete White, a 1948 graduate of Virginia Tech, and to encourage new interest in the teaching of engineering and improve the learning process.

Kraige has received several teaching honors during his tenure at Virginia Tech, beginning with the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics Outstanding Educator Award in 1977. He received the Virginia Tech Phillip Sporn Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Engineering Subjects in 1978. Six years later, he received the William E. Wine Award for Outstanding University Teaching. Kraige was inducted into the Virginia Tech Academy of Teaching Excellence in 1984. The College of Engineering honored him with the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1996.

He also has received several prestigious teaching awards outside the university. In 1988 the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) presented Kraige with the AT&T Foundation Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Southeastern Section of ASEE. During the same year, the State Council for Higher Education for Virginia recognized Kraige with the Outstanding Faculty Award. In 1996, he received the Distinguished Educator Award from the Mechanics Division of ASEE, and was named Virginia Professor of the Year for 1997 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement in Support of Education (CASE).

Kraige, who earned his bachelor's degree, master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, has worked since 1983 on personal computer software designed to aid in the instruction and learning of statics and dynamics. This work was sponsored by State Council for Higher Education for Virginia and the National Science Foundation.

Kraige has co-authored the second- through-sixth editions of Engineering Mechanics, an internationally recognized series of textbooks on statics and dynamics that enjoys a significant percentage of the market sales in this field.

The College of Engineering at Virginia Tech is internationally recognized for its excellence in 14 engineering disciplines and computer science. The college's 5,600 undergraduates benefit from an innovative curriculum that provides a "hands-on, minds-on" approach to engineering education, complementing classroom instruction with two unique design-and-build facilities and a strong Cooperative Education Program. With more than 50 research centers and numerous laboratories, the college offers its 2,000 graduate students opportunities in advanced fields of study such as biomedical engineering, state-of-the-art microelectronics, and nanotechnology.

Founded in 1872 as a land-grant college, Virginia Tech has grown to become the largest university in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Today, Virginia Tech's eight colleges are dedicated to putting knowledge to work through teaching, research, and outreach activities, and to fulfilling its vision to be among the top 30 research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg, and other campus centers in northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls 28,000 full- and part-time undergraduate and graduate students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries in 170 academic degree programs.

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