Architecture professor earns AFS distinguished achievement award

A group of educators including Shelley Holliday, senior lecturer for the Department of Architecture, were honored for teaching excellence with [Distinguished Achievement Awards] (http://www.aggienetwork.com/programs/awards/daul/default.aspx) from The Association of Former Students during an April 29 ceremony at Rudder Theatre.

Nominations for the awards were received from colleges and various campus groups and administrators; winners each of whom received a $4,000 cash gift, an engraved watch and a commemorative plaque, were chosen by subcommittees assigned to one of the program’s six categories.

In a nomination letter, a graduate student said Holliday’s “ability to keep aesthetically-minded design students engaged in mathematically and technically rich engineering concepts is no small feat and one that should be celebrated.”

A colleague affirmed her effectiveness, saying that the students in her courses praise her teaching.

Holliday was one of nine recipients of the award in the teaching category.

Before coming to Texas A&M for graduate school, Holliday was a structural engineer for an architectural firm in Chicago. Her experience working on several buildings, including the world-famous [Guggenheim Museum] (http://www.guggenheim.org/bilbao) in Bilbao, Spain, allows her to “translate abstract formulas into nuts, bolts and welds” for students, said a colleague in a nomination letter.

Holliday, who joined the Texas A&M faculty in 2000, was recognized with an undergraduate teaching award at the Department of Architecture’s 2012 [Celebration of Excellence] (http://one.arch.tamu.edu/news/2012/6/5/celebration-excellence/) , and the 2011 Association of Former Students College-Level Distinguished Teaching Award.

Her teaching focuses on bridging the gap between architecture and engineering and interdisciplinary design.

Holliday earned a Master of Civil Engineering degree at Texas A&M in 2001 and a bachelor’s degree in architectural studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1989.