Benjamin Smith Reynolds Award for Excellence in Teaching
Patrick V. Farrell
Academic Affairs and Mechanical Engineering

Bollinger Academic Staff Distinguished Achievement Award
Donna M. Lewis
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

Byron Bird Award for Excellence in a Research Publication
James E. Smith
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

Ragnar E. Onstad Service to Society Award
Phil J. Biebl
Engineering External Relations

Patrick V. Farrell (16K JPG)

Mechanical Engineering Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Patrick V. Farrell is the 2001 recipient of the Benjamin Smith Reynolds Award for Excellence in Teaching Engineers. His peers say Farrell's visionary leadership, dedication and understanding of the relationship between teaching and learning are responsible for great improvements in faculty instruction and student learning in the college and beyond.

In 1993, Farrell was one of 14 faculty to participate in a research study conducted by then Industrial Engineering PhD student Katherine Sanders. The study helped faculty redesign their work as teachers by exploring the process of learning. Farrell and two others (Professors Mike Corradini and John Mitchell) saw great potential for improving teaching through Sanders' work. The team helped create a formal program in teaching improvement called Creating a Collaborative Learning Environment (CCLE). The provost expanded the program to serve the entire campus under its new title, Creating a Collaborative Academic Environment.

EPD 160, Introduction to Engineering was also an outgrowth of the Sanders PhD study. Farrell, together with five other faculty and Sanders, created the course to provide students with a real engineering design experience to help them decide on engineering as a career. The result has been a significantly higher retention rate in engineering, particularly among women. Farrell has been the coordinator of the course for the past four years. He recruits and trains new faculty, helps to organize the syllabus and find suitable class projects.

Farrell has put many of his ideas on teaching and learning into his own classroom. He stresses "active learning" so that students are engaged rather than passively taking notes, and provides students the opportunity to explore ideas on their own and present their findings in class.

In recognition of his devotion to improving teaching and learning, Farrell was elected to the Wisconsin Teaching Academy in 1996. Farrell is an active participant in the academy. He and seven others from across campus met every week for two years to develop guidelines for the possible ways colleagues could help each other improve and/or evaluate teaching. The resulting document is now used heavily at UW-Madison and other universities. Farrell was invited to present the results of this project at several meetings of the American Association of Higher Education.

Farrell earned his BS in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1976. He earned his MS in mechanical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1978, and PhD from the University of Michigan in 1982. He joined the faculty at UW-Madison in 1982. He was promoted to associate professor in 1987 and full professor in 1993.

Donna M. Lewis (20K JPG)

Donna M. Lewis has made outstanding contributions to the college, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE), Teaching Improvement Program and has served on numerous committees throughout the university. As administrator for ECE, Lewis exemplifies excellence in leadership by consistently performing at a high level, setting superior standards of excellence for staff and teaching assistants, and interacting positively and effectively with faculty, staff and students.

Lewis joined ECE in 1989 after 17 years of service to the UW as an administrative assistant to the Department of Political Science and UW Band, and as support staff to the School of Social Work and UW Hospital. She brought to ECE a degree of stability, reliability, efficiency and quality that allows department chairs to be active teachers, researchers, fundraisers and academic leaders.

As the role of department chair passes between professors, Lewis provides continuity. Working with tight budgets and regulated spending, she plays a crucial role in managing the department's budget. Lewis is an outstanding manager and supervisor and a firm believer in continuous improvement. She has been instrumental in improving the department support and shop staff's work environment and the quality of services they provide. Her guidance and positive attitude has helped alleviate personnel problems and has improved the general work atmosphere.

Lewis earned her BS degree in education from UW-Madison in 1972. The department benefits from her experience in education every day. She selects, trains and assigns the department's 50-60 teaching assistants (TAs) each semester and is highly respected by them. She has developed and instituted policies and programs that improve the quality of instruction by improving the teaching performance of TAs.

Her work has transcended the boundaries of the department to the entire college and university. Many successful teaching improvement programs for new and continuing TAs and instructors resulted from her involvement in the college TA and staff development program since 1989. She addresses training issues and spreads knowledge about the college training programs at national TA and education conferences.

Lewis has contributed to numerous university committees as well. Her colleagues say Lewis not only has the ability to connect with all kinds of people but can also convince them to participate and accomplish things.

James E. Smith (24K JPG)

Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor James E. Smith is this year's recipient of the Byron Bird Award for Excellence in a Research Publication. The award recognizes the fundamental contributions of his research publications and patent in the development of high speed, high performance microprocessors.

Twenty years ago, a microprocessor with 100,000 transistors could execute the instructions of a program one at a time, taking tens of clock cycles. Today, microprocessors hold tens of millions of transistors and execute multiple instructions in a single clock cycle. Smith's work contributed innovations in computer architecture that made possible this improvement to instruction processing rates.

Determining which instructions to process is key to processing instructions at a high rate. Programs typically have elaborate decision making structures (or branch instructions) that determine which parts of the program should be executed. In high-performance computing, instruction processing cannot wait for the outcome of a branch to be known. Smith's 1981 paper "A Study of Branch Prediction Strategies" and related patent "Branch Predictor Using Random Access Memory" were the first publications targeted specifically at techniques for overcoming the performance limitations of branch instructions. Microprocessor designers began to put these techniques into practice in the 1990s. Today, almost every microprocessor makes use of branch prediction methods built on the fundamental methods described in Smith's paper and patent.

Another strategy used to improve processing rate is out-of-order instruction processing. Instructions are processed in the order their input operands are available, and not in the order they occur in the program. This improves the processing rate but creates problems for software and debugging. Smith's article "Implementation of Precise Interrupts in Pipelined Processors" was the first publication to describe a series of techniques that would give the appearance of sequential execution even though the actual instruction execution order was very different. One of these techniques, the Reorder Buffer, is now the standard used by modern microprocessors.

Smith earned his BS, MS and PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois in 1972, '74 and '76 respectively. He joined the ECE faculty in 1976 and took leaves of absence to work in industry between 1979 – '81 and 1984-'89.

Phil J. Biebl (12K JPG)

Engineering External Relations Senior Artist Philip John Biebl is the 2001 recipient of the Ragnar E. Onstad Service to Society Award.

Biebl currently serves as co-chair of the Human Concerns and Social Justice Commission at St. Bernard's Catholic Church in Madison. The commission's purpose is to assist St. Bernards in its mission of social justice within the parish and beyond. This effort encompasses programs such as the Luke House Community Meal Program, St. Vincent de Paul charity work, the Parish Nursing Program, nursing home visits and other community projects. The committee is also responsible for outreach to community members in physical, emotional and/or financial need.

Biebl co-founded and continues to organize St. Bernard's volunteer effort for Luke House Community Meal Program. The program regularly serves meals to anyone in need. Every month for the past seven years, Biebl and members of St. Bernard's have prepared and served meals. Biebl is continually recruiting new volunteers to maintain the effort.

From 1997 to 2000, Biebl served as parish council secretary and volunteered for various other St. Bernard committees during his three-year term. From 1990 to 1992, he was involved with the Interreligious voice for Peace and Justice. He worked with the group to raise awareness in Madison regarding peace and justice issues during the Gulf War.

Whether it is checking in on an elderly neighbor or lending his artistic talents to community efforts, Biebl finds ways to make a difference every day. For example, each morning he launches his web browser and visits www.thehungersite.com. He clicks on three links that, in exchange for the visit, agree to send food, clothing, and medicine to the world's needy. This is a small example of a simple action that many people take, but it's important because it demonstrates one of the many ways that Biebl translates good intentions into action every day.

Biebl graduated from UW-Madison with a BS in fine arts in 1975. In 1984 he earned a commercial art degree from Madison Area Technical College. Before joining the College of Engineering in 1990, he worked as a graphic design manager for Wisconsin Public Radio and Television.

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