Distinguished
Professor Speech – Dr. Adel ElSafty
President
Szymanski, Provost Chally, Prof. Fenner, faculty, staff, students, family, friends,
and members of the UNF community: Thank you all. I am honored and humbled to be
recognized as UNF’s Distinguished Professor. I’d like to congratulate Dr.
Elfayoumy on his distinguished professor runner up award and his great
accomplishments. I have been fortunate and blessed to be surrounded by such a great
group of UNF faculty, staff, administrators, students, and alumni. I’m grateful
to all of you for helping me to reach this point, which means a great deal to
me.
As
all of you know, it took me several years to be able to stand here and have the
honor and pleasure to address you. I was selected twice as a Distinguished
Professor runner up in 2016 and 2017. That’s typical to almost everything I try
to accomplish in my life; persistent trials with much struggle to achieve a
goal, several setbacks, many failures, then maybe a success. I remember,
over thirty years ago, I kept trying for years to pursue my PhD in Europe or
North America after finishing my Master’s degree. My Mom and Dad comforted and
embraced me while I kept receiving many rejection letters, admission letters
without enough scholarship, more rejections, and finally a success. Then when I
was travelling in 1989 to pursue my PhD in North Carolina, my parents struggled
to hide the tears in their eyes at Cairo airport saying goodbye. My Dad was a
civil engineer building bridges, tunnels, and dams. He got his civil
engineering education at Cairo University in Egypt and his professional training
was in France and Sweden in the 1950s and 60s. Given his life
experiences, he encouraged me to travel knowing the importance of international
exposure. My mom’s studies at the Law school at Cairo University in the 1950s
made her very analytical and logical in making decisions and giving sound
advice. I love and miss my parents so much. They fostered persistence and
dedication to pursuing our dream no matter how long it takes or how hard it is.
I learned from my parents’ persistent support for my sister, while raising her
two sons, to successfully pursue her medical MD degree at Cairo University, her
Master’s and PhD, and to admirably fulfill her demanding job as the chair of
the Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. I learned through my
parents support for my brother to successfully earn his engineering degree and
establish a very successful engineering firm in Egypt. Our parents have been an
inspiration to us, and their example continues even after they passed away.
Their spirit of persistence resides in me for I am trying to emulate them
by supporting and encouraging our UNF students and my children - Mariam a
junior at the University of Florida “UF” pursuing her premed degree, Summer an
11th grader at Bolles, and Adam, a 5th grader.
I
see this support and encouragement to persist past failure as a central theme
in my life and an important goal for us as teachers to pursue. I always urge my
children and students to try, fail, process, reflect, accumulate knowledge, learn
from failure, try again, fail again, try, and then succeed. It is fine to have
failures, but with persistence one will eventually reach success. I tell my
students that failure is part of learning and most likely will be the key to
success. I learned that very well from engineering projects and even from
the construction of the ancient Egyptian pyramids. I have learned that
throughout history, we have experienced unfortunate structural failures,
including bridge collapses. Yet, these failures prompt us to gather invaluable
information, learn critical lessons from failures, deepen our knowledge,
sharpen our skills, and enhance our future design, construction, maintenance,
repair, and monitoring. The failures we experience provide essential lessons to
achieve success.
But
persistence through initial failure is not the only important virtue. Community is important as well. I naively
thought that engineering, science, and technology alone were sufficient to
advance our lives. I had the honor to lead faculty groups on international
academic visits to Turkey, Morocco and Egypt to establish and maintain research
initiatives and exchange programs. And, I thought I was the expert who knew it
all, till I learned how limited my knowledge was and still is. When touring the
Pyramids in Giza, the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, and historic places in
Egypt, Turkey and Morocco, my knowledge was only focused on the engineering
aspects. However, it was amazing to learn from my UNF colleagues about the
culture, society, and history of the ancient Egyptian civilization, the
cultures of Greece, Rome, Persia, China, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the
Aztecs. Thanks to my knowledgeable colleagues, my lack of knowledge turned into
a rich learning experience.
I also have led and
co-led student groups on Study-Abroad and International TLO service projects to
Ghana, Morocco, and Germany; and honestly I learned a great deal from my
colleagues and students during these travels. Our interaction helped me develop
cross-cultural awareness and learn to teach using experiential learning. Few
years ago, I was a guest lecturer at a university in Cologne, Germany and had
to present very dry topics. After several rehearsals, I was able to improve my
presentations through integrating practical examples from my industrial
experience and embedding video clips of my lab testing. The students and
faculty got very engaged and interacted positively; and after the lecture, they
were knocking on the desks with their hands and knuckles. Before I got worried,
my dear German colleague reassured me enthusiastically with a big smile that
this knocking is a kind of applause expressing appreciation. I was encouraged
to interact more and exchange a great deal of information with the German audience
that broadened my horizons and deepened my knowledge. Later, I conducted a
successful study-abroad with UNF students to learn the history and structural
engineering in Germany. I also initiated collaboration in Japan and Italy to
establish joint research and exchange programs; and my students and I learned
from a remarkable American architect many lessons on the history, culture, and
preservation of historic structures in Italy.
Talking and traveling with knowledgeable
faculty taught me about the history of nations and that the history is marked
by great events and accomplishments of remarkable individuals whose impact is
significant, not just in construction, but in science, culture, economics, and
technology. I learned that a vibrant community of learners from multiple
backgrounds and perspectives is the best way to advance knowledge, and the best
way to have a positive impact on our UNF students and to advance their careers.
One
of the areas of my academic expertise is prestressed concrete that you see in
bridges and buildings. When I started teaching prestressed concrete, I failed
to connect with my students. Then I was fortunate to partner with industrial
firms and the Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI)-foundation. With their help and
my persistence, I succeeded in improving my lectures and the students started being
excited and having a good learning experience about today’s great successes in
design, fabrication, and construction of millions of landmark structures using
precast and Prestressed concrete. They enjoyed learning about the history and evolution
of prestressed concrete that resulted in a boom in reconstructing bridges in
Europe that were destroyed during World War II.
With persistence and learning from my
failures, along with the support of my community of scholars and industry
professionals, I was fortunate to lead UNF student teams to win regional and
national competitions, collaborate and lead faculty research teams from 8
universities, secure about $2.5 million project funds, including a national grant to
establish the 1st PCI Engineering Design Studio in the US, and
publish a textbook and 90 journal and conference papers. I was blessed to
receive a national award by the PCI “The Educator of The Year Award”, and awards
of “Fulbright Scholar” and “Fulbright Specialist”.
But
my experience is not unique. Although I am the one being recognized today,
there are many of you who are doing amazing work. As we speak, almost 17,000 UNF students are
being inspired by the teaching of our knowledgeable and dedicated faculty. Do you know what I
think is unique about UNF? It’s our passionate professors who spark
enthusiasm, create a culture of active learning, light the fire of curiosity, foster
students’ critical thinking and creativity, engage in our community, and not
only engage with our students, but invest in their overall well-being.
My
daughters, Mariam and Summer, used to ask me when they were young, “Dad, what do you really do or accomplish?”
They basically question the impact of professors. I kept telling them that thousands
of lives are being saved every hour as a result of rigorous academic research
and teaching that contribute to advances in medical science and innovations in
engineering. My answer did not convince them enough, till my daughter started
pursuing her premed studies at UF and volunteering at Shands and Mayo Clinic. She
started realizing that indeed thousands of patients are being cured with new
medicines and innovative discoveries. To convince my children more, I shared
with them the news on adaptive toys that help children with physical
disabilities by the combined efforts and innovations of physical therapy and
engineering at UNF. I explained to my children that we proudly work in an
aspirational community where we take on big challenges in our research and
teaching. Thus, challenges do not become setbacks or roadblocks, but offer us
opportunities to do remarkable work. I constantly share with my students and
my children how graduates from UNF and other institutions have contributed to
designing, constructing, improving, and maintaining many resilient bridges,
buildings, tunnels, roads, and new water, energy, and transportation systems to
improve our lives. Every day, a new invention or innovation emerges in
engineering that enhances our overall wellbeing. I think my children were
either convinced after my persistence in providing success stories or they just
got bored and gave up asking. But do you
think I stopped? No, I told my children and students: Remember, Apple was on
the verge of bankruptcy 20 years ago, but Steve Jobs clear vision, sound plans,
creativity, and partnership with his competitor, Microsoft, turned things
around to make Apple now the most successful US company that tops a market
valuation of $1 trillion. Also, 10 years ago Elon Musk’s vision became a
reality after years of many setbacks, three failures, hard work, and then one
success that converted the two struggling companies of Tesla and Space X from
being on the verge of bankruptcy to today’s very successful companies.
At
the beginning of the new academic year, it is important to remember that it is our
individual and collective efforts as faculty, staff, and administrators that
create a unique and healthy learning environment. Today, we are fortunate to
witness a great progress at UNF because of these efforts across all of our
colleges. Our accomplishments have earned national and international
acclaim. We challenge our students, embrace their failures, support and
inspire them to pursue success. That combination of challenging our students to
persist and supporting them as a community is a huge strength of UNF.
Yet,
with all of these successes, did we realize our full potential?
Despite our dedicated efforts in providing a rich
learning environment that has significantly increased students’ progress and
growth, the state metrics are not reflecting our dedication.
My colleagues, now more than ever, our job is to
acknowledge the challenges before us, learn from the failures behind us, and turn
those failures into successes. We will leverage our resources, our competitive
advantages, our skilled faculty, and our supportive industry to achieve giant
leaps of progress and sustainable success. We will work collaboratively to provide
a healthy environment and an enjoyable freshmen experience, attract remarkable
students, retain and motivate them, support and help them persist, graduate, and
place them in successful careers. We will keep inspiring and engaging our
students in hands-on experiences and experiential learning. I believe that with
a renewed focus on what we do best, challenging and supporting our students,
the metrics, as well as our outstanding student learning, will eventually
reflect our success.
My colleagues, as we look toward the future, let us face
our challenges and overcome our difficulties and limitations together. Let us
continue transforming education to meet the rapidly changing world and emerging
challenges. I suggest we build bridges of understanding, remove the barriers of
misunderstanding, and pave the road for partnership. Let us work alongside each
other in a grand, diverse community of learners, who reach across boundaries,
barriers, and differences, share in our diverse experience and expertise, and
build a successful future together. We will become stronger and more
successful. We not only can but we will transform challenges into success and
with that we will realize our full potential.
Thank
you.
