Jerry S. Dobrovolny Distinguished Professorship

in Entrepreneurial Engineering

Jerry S. Dobrovolny received his B.S. in General Engineering at the University of Illinois in 1943 and his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering in 1947. He joined the Department of General Engineering Drawing in 1945 as an instructor and rapidly rose through the ranks to full professor and a department head. He served as department head for nearly thirty years, officially retiring in 1987.

After graduation in 1943, he completed the Army Officers Candidate School program and was invited to teach engineering in the Army Specialist Training Reserve Program. After this, he taught in the Department of General Engineering Drawing and worked in the Department of Civil Engineering on a navy research project involving notch sensitivity of wide steel ship plates that were used to build liberty ships. In the fall of 1948, he became a full-time instructor in the Department of General Engineering Drawing, the beginning of an auspicious career in what is now known as the Department of General Engineering.

Throughout his career, he worked in various engineering positions; as a special research assistant for the Illinois State Geological Survey, as a research associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering on various soil and mechanics projects, and as both a design and traffic engineer for the Illinois State Highway Department.

In his academic work, he developed GE 205, a course for geology students in the use of descriptive geometry methods in solving structural geometry problems. He was selected to teach GE 250, Philosophy and Methods of Engineering, and he assumed the teaching responsibility for GE 220, History of Engineering. His research interests included curriculum development for two-year associate degree programs in engineering technology and also in project design in general engineering. He was involved with the preparation of teachers for engineering technology programs and pre college student science programs.

He was active in a wide range of technical, honorary and professional societies, including Sigma Xi, American Association for the Advancement of Science (fellow), Illinois Society of Professional Engineering (president), National Society of Professional Engineers, American Society for Engineering Education, American Technical Education Association (president), and the American Society of Civil Engineers. At the university level, Professor Dobrovolny chaired a number of Senate committees, including the Military Education Council for seven years. He was elected to serve on the NROTC Association of Schools and Colleges Executive Committee (1986-1992), which advised the admiral overseeing the NROTC program nationally.

Under his leadership in General Engineering, he was responsible for a number of new initiatives, including the General Engineering Senior Design Project, which has resulted in 93 national awards, Gamma Epsilon, the General Engineering honor society, and the publication of the first General Engineering Alumni Newsletter.

Upon his retirement in 1987, the Jerry S. Dobrovolny Scholarship was established to recognize the senior in the GE Department with exceptional leadership qualities and outstanding academic achievements.

The Jerry S. Dobrovolny Distinguished Professorship Fund will honor this gifted educator, mentor and scholar by supporting and recognizing outstanding faculty members in the Department of General Engineering.With your generous support, Professor Dobrovolny's legacy will live on at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Department of General Engineering will ensure the continued excellence to which Professor Dobrovolny devoted so much of his life.

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