News Articles

MJ Timm Wins the Inaugural Schwaegler Scholarship

Written by Brett Prim
June 5, 2021

The CEEGR Department is pleased to announce Meng Juan Timm as our inaugural recipient of the Richard Schwaegler Endowed Scholarship. MJ is an excellent student with a major in civil engineering. She is the secretary of Robotics Club and historian of the Society of Women Engineers. MJ is currently in her junior year, and will be working at Clark Construction this summer. Her long term plans include possibly attending graduate school for structural engineering, and working professionally as a structural engineer. Congratulations MJ!

The scholarship also serves to celebrate professor Richard Schwaegler. Dr. Richard Schwaegler was a faculty member in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department for close to 50 years. The civil engineering department was almost his second home. Dick single handedly taught all the mechanics and structural engineering courses. His teaching philosophy was, if one sets the bar high, the students would rise up to the expectation. Dick did not simply expect a lot from his students, but he also gave a lot of himself to the students to help them succeed. He meticulously graded the homework assignments for his courses paying attention to penmanship and neat presentation; his large, red Rs (for resubmit) are still well known among his students!. He had an open door policy to assist students throughout his career at SU and helped the students find engineering internships and full time positions. With Dick’s stellar reputation within the structural engineering community in the Puget Sound region, no employer hesitated to hire if Dick recommended a student. Dick received the Puget Sound Engineering Council’s Academic Engineer of the Year award in 1999. Dick was a truly a “Students’ Professor”!