E. Sam Sovilla

E. Sam Sovilla, Professor Emeritus (Associate Provost and Director of Division of Professional Practice 1975-2000). Over his tenure as director of the Division the number of academic departments participating in co-op expanded from 22 to 36 and, at times, more than 4,000 students were active in the program. Sovilla has long been involved in state, regional, national and international professional organizations.

In the American Society for Engineering Education he served as chair of the Cooperative Education Division, vice chairperson of the Society’s College/Industry/Government Council and chair of the Executive Board for the Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration. He also is a past president of the National Cooperative Education and Internship Association and the Ohio Cooperative Education Association and was a charter member of the World Assembly for Cooperative Education (now the World Association).

Sovilla has been an on-site consultant for 37 colleges and universities and has provided a variety of consultations for over 200 schools, corporations and government agencies. He has presented papers in Europe, Canada and throughout the United States. Sovilla is the author of fourteen articles in professional journals and has been published in Spain and in England. He has been a consultant to the U. S. Department of Education, Accreditation Team Member for the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools and a book reviewer for two major publishers. Sovilla also served as an instructor for five regional/National co-op training centers and served for five years as the elected moderator for an annual invitational workshop for the cooperative education leadership in the USA and Canada.

Over the years Sovilla has received a number of recognitions for his service roles. In 1987, he was the recipient of the national Cooperative Education Association’s Dean Herman Schneider Award for his contributions in cooperative education. For his service to engineering cooperative education, Sovilla was the recipient of the 1995 Alvah K. Borman Award from the Cooperative Education Division of the American Society for Engineering Education and, in 1995, he was selected by the overall 12,000-member Society for the prestigious Clement J. Freund Award. He is also a past recipient of the Ohio Cooperative Education Association’s Member of the Year Award. In the American Society for Engineering Education’s Annual Conference for Industry and Education Collaboration, Sovilla has been the recipient of four “Best Session” or “Best Paper” awards.

In 2000, Sovilla was honored in a special way by two professional organizations. The Ohio Cooperative Education Association named its highest award bestowed to an employing organization or an educational institution as the E. Sam Sovilla Award for Excellence. In the same year the Midwest Cooperative Education Association named it Educator of the Year Award the E. Sam Sovilla Educator of the Year Award. The MCEA also selected Sovilla to be the first recipient of its Donald C. Hunt Award, which recognizes excellence in lifetime achievements in cooperative education.

Sovilla is currently an adjunct professor in Professional Practice and is involved with a program history project and planning for the centennial anniversary of cooperative education in 2005-06.