Dr. Shadi Balawi feels that as a professor, it is his job to ensure every student who walks into his classroom fully grasps the concepts he is teaching. It is this connection that inspires his passion for academia.
“I think one of the things to maintain as a professor is that we need to encourage and inspire,” said Balawi, an associate professor of instruction in the J. Mike Walker ’66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University. “We need to help the students fulfill their potentials. We need to make sure they are engaged and that they like what they’re doing.”
When he gets the opportunity to see a student truly understand a topic, Balawi said it is gratifying to know they will be able to move forward independently.
“That type of interaction is something that I really treasure,” he said.
Balawi comes from a history of academia, beginning with his graduate studies at the University of Cincinnati, where he was adjunct faculty in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and received his Ph.D. It was then when he realized his passion for teaching others.
“I liked the idea of clarifying issues that people may not have understood,” said Balawi. “I figured out that I could do that. I had always liked academia, and I felt that maybe I had some kind of talent there.”
With nearly 20 years of teaching experience, Balawi has worked for Texas A&M since January of 2018. He currently teaches Materials and Manufacturing (MEEN 360 and 361). Balawi wants his students to learn skills that can be applied to make important decisions. To Balawi, teaching goes beyond numbers and words.
“I always tell my students that you are not hired for your ability to do math and figure out what to do with the numbers in terms of equations and models,” Balawi said. “It is about what these numbers actually mean and how you make use of them in real-life applications.”