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<\/p>\nDr. Warren Donworth received the American Welding Society’s Excellence in Welding award for education in 2015.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cMusic is very complicated,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s not that far a leap from music into a technical field.\u201d Still, he adds, if someone had told him early in his career that he one day would lead the welding department at ACC, \u201cI would have said you need to play that tape backward,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
While Donworth has stepped aside from the leadership role he once held, his influence in the department still looms large, as does his reputation for helping students excel in a program considered unique for its blend of practicality and creativity.<\/p>\n
\u201cSay hello to the unstarving artist,\u201d Donworth says of the students who are able to learn both a vocation and an avocation through the college\u2019s welding technology and art metals instruction.<\/p>\n
Donworth came to ACC in 1985 as an adjunct professor of welding inspection after a winding career as a middle school music literature\/music history teacher and a homebuilder. His construction experience led him to welding \u2015 he holds an associate degree from ACC \u2015 and welding inspection, the critical task of ensuring that things like bridges, airplanes, and off-shore drilling platforms hold together.<\/p>\n
In 1989 he was appointed head of the department and charged with strengthening anemic enrollment. Meanwhile, ACC\u2019s Tom Gingras, also a welding professor, was building an art metals program. The two joined forces and talents and over the next 12 years built a program encompassing the three complementary disciplines of traditional welding, art metals, and blacksmithing. Only Southern Illinois University offers similar programming. \u00a0Enrollment has increased 400 percent since.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe built the department up from a small, run-of-the-mill welding school to what it is today,\u201d says Troy DeFrates, one of Donworth\u2019s former students and current Welding Technology Department chair. \u201cHe is as passionate today as he was 30 years ago, and he brings that out in the people he teaches. He has been very instrumental in getting hundreds of people employed.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Donworth earned a Ph.D. in educational administration, he found his calling remained in the classroom. After 30 years of helping individuals forge successful careers, he\u2019s been around long enough to see students whose parents graduated from the program, and certainly long enough to experience the gratification that comes from seeing students get jobs, or even hire other graduates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey start out on paper as students,\u201d he says. \u201cThey quickly become colleagues and friends.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How does a musician with aspirations of a career in the symphony end up an award-winning welding professor? According to Dr. Warren Donworth, Austin Community College professor of welding, it\u2019s not that much of a … Continue reading