Gary Downey, of Blacksburg, professor of science and technology studies in the Department of Science and Technology in Society in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, has received the university’s 2004 W.E. Wine Achievement Award.

The three William E. Wine Achievement Awards were established in 1957 by the Virginia Tech Alumni Association in memory of William E. Wine, class of 1904, who served on the university’s board of visitors and as president of the Alumni Association. Three faculty members are selected to receive the teaching awards by a committee representing all eight colleges of the university. One person is nominated from each college following a college-level selection from candidates nominated by students, faculty, or alumni.

Downey is a teacher who not only instructs his students well but also touches their lives in a deep and profound way. He teaches an award-winning course in Engineering Cultures, which attracts large numbers of students. In the class, Downey motivates his students to not only seek more courses in science and technology studies but often to change their educational direction completely. One of his students wrote: "No single course or professor at Virginia Tech had a greater impact on my life."

He helps students develop concrete strategies for understanding cultural differences and engaging in shared problem solving amidst differences. In his graduate course, Downey recognized that his students’ course expectation did not match his own, and responding their needs, redid the course.

Downey received a bachelor’s in social relations and another in mechanical engineering, both from Lehigh University, and a master’s and Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago. He is a member of the Society for the Social Studies of Science, the American Anthropological Association, the Society for Cultural Anthropology, and the American Society of Engineering Education, as well as the honorary fraternities Phi Beta Kappa in the liberal arts, Tau Beta Pi in engineering, Sigma Xi in the sciences, and Pi Tau Sigma in mechanical engineering. Three times he has received the Certificate of Teaching Excellence, and also he has received the XCaliber Award and the Diggs Teaching Scholar Award. He was elected a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association.

The College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences embraces the arts, humanities, social and human sciences, and education. The college nurtures intellect and spirit, enlightens decision-making, inspires positive change, and improves the quality of life for people of all ages. It is home to the departments of apparel, housing and resource management, communication, educational leadership and policy studies, English, foreign languages and literatures, history; human development, interdisciplinary studies, music, philosophy, political science, ROTC, science and technology in society, sociology, teaching and learning, and theatre arts.

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 research universities in the nation. At its 2,600-acre main campus located in Blacksburg and other campus centers in Northern Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond, and Roanoke, Virginia Tech enrolls more than 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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