Princeton Weekly Bulletin, March 2, 1998
Classicist, engineer to be 250th Visiting Professors
Classicist Andrew Szegedy-Maszak of Wesleyan University and mechanical and aerospace engineer Zellman Warhaft of Cornell University will hold 250th Anniversary Visiting Professorships for Distinguished Teaching for the academic year 1998-99.
Szegedy-Maszak, a scholar of Greek history and literature, will teach Classical Mythology and offer seminars on teaching techniques for graduate students.
In addition, he will help the department "explore ways in which Princeton's curriculum might further include students who do not study classical languages," he says. Wesleyan, for instance, offers a major in classical civilizations in addition to a major in Greek or Latin.
A classicist of more than ordinary range of interest, Szegedy-Maszak is an authority on 19th-century photography -- a field in which he has curated numerous museum exhibitions at Wesleyan and elsewhere. In teaching, he combines his interests in classical culture and 19th-century culture, to show students how 19th-century artists and travelers regarded classical antiquity. "We are still heir to many 19th-century preconceptions," he comments. "We associate Greece with high culture, aesthetics and intellectualism, and Rome with brutality, consumption and decadence."
Recipient of Wesleyan's 1996 Excellence in Teaching award, Szegedy-Maszak also received a 1986 classics teaching award from the American Philological Society.
His public education projects include the Teaching Co.'s video course in Greek Civilization and serving as contributing editor to Archaeology magazine.
A graduate of the University of Michigan, he earned his 1976 PhD at Princeton. At Wesleyan since 1973, he has been Jane A. Seney Professor of Greek since 1992. He has also held visiting professorships at Dartmouth, Yale and the University of California, Los Angeles.
Innovative engineering courses
Warhaft is professor at Cornell University's Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. An experimentalist interested in turbulent flows, he is also concerned with the social and environmental aspects of engineering.
Warhaft created two innovative courses at Cornell: The Engine and the Atmosphere for freshmen and sophomores, and an upper level course called Components and Systems: Engineering in a Social Context.
The former introduces concepts in fluid and thermal sciences, showing how they enable and constrain technological developments in energy production and transportation, and describes how such developments interact with the environment. The course resulted in a textbook, An Introduction to Thermal-Fluid Engineering: The Engine and the Atmosphere (1997).
The components and systems course has focused on such issues as the Patriot missile system, and transportation planning and policy -- stressing the social and environmental implications of technological developments.
Warhaft will offer The Engine and the Atmosphere at Princeton during the fall semester. In the spring, he will lead a series of workshop seminars for faculty and graduate students based on both the Cornell courses.
In addition, he will coordinate an effort to develop cross disciplinary courses to be conducted by faculty from the Princeton Environmental Institute, Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Woodrow Wilson School, and other departments and programs.
Twice voted by Cornell students the best teacher in MAE, Warhaft also received the Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1990 and 1995.
A member of the Cornell faculty since 1977, he received his BE from the University of Melbourne and his 1975 PhD from the University of London.
The 250th Anniversary Visiting Professorships for Distinguished Teaching were established by President Shapiro as part of teaching initiatives associated with the University's 250th Anniversary. Visitors are selected for excellence in teaching and their capacity to foster innovation in undergraduate teaching.