Teaching

In the first academic year at Purdue University Dr. van Gelder taught five courses: two courses in the Fall of 1992: CE500 and CE507; two courses in the Spring of 1993: CE501 and CE607; in the Maymester of 1993: LS400. In the subsequent nine years, he taught 7 courses per academic year:

• Fall semester: in addition to the teaching of the regular courses, students specializing in the direction of geodesy expressed a desire to have the Geodesy III/Physical Geodesy course (CE608, now CE612) reinstated. This became necessary since the Geodesy and Geophysics Branch of the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA, later the National Imagery and Mapping Agency/NIMA, now the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency/NGA), in St. Louis started to send their employees to Purdue University again (many DMA/NIMA/NGA students used to enroll in the program of the Department of Geodetic Science and Surveying of the Ohio State University). The limited enrollment dictated that occasionally the course to be given as a CE697. In the Fall of 1996 the GPS Surveying course CE500 was taught, for the first time, on IHETS/TV. In the Fall semesters of 2001 through 2003 he taught with Prof. Bethel CE597O Fundamentals in Photogrammetry and Geodesy as part of the Joint Masters Program in Earth Observation with the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
• Spring Semester: undergraduate students having passed through the GPS Surveying/Geodetic Control Surveying course (CE500, now CE511), and the graduate students having gone through the Satellite Geodesy/ Geodesy II course (CE607, now CE611), expressed interest in a follow-up course in which they wanted to be more intensely exposed to Special GPS Projects.
• Course revisions: In 1995 he reduced the geodesy related courses from five (CE500, CE501, CE507, CE607, CE608) to four courses (CE510, CE511, CE611, CE612). However, this did not result in a reduction of his teaching load. Immediately, in the Fall of 1996 CE506 was added to his teaching duties for the next three years. In recent years, courses as CE200 and LS300 also were added forcing him to suspend the Advanced Geodesy courses CE611 and CE612., see the Table below.
• Maymester: Between 1993 and 2003 Dr. van Gelder with Prof. Steven Johnson was involved in one of the three capstone design courses: LS400 Summer Geomatics Engineering Design Project. In this course, the geomatics students negotiate, define, design, solve, and report on an engineering project. It is the first time that they in the geomatics curriculum, in a group setting, apply knowledge to real life problems. During evaluations, most students consider LS400 one of the most rewarding experiences during their stay at Purdue University.
• Academic year 2001/2002 and onwards: Despite continuous protests of some graduate students, the teaching and research load prevented him to teach CE611 (formerly CE607) and CE612 (formerly (CE608). Dr. van Gelder suspended teaching his two favorite courses for the first time in his ten year tenure at Purdue University, from 2001/2002 onward.
• Awards: In 1998, as recognition for his teaching Dr. van Gelder became the recipient of the School of Civil Engineering's Harold Munson Teaching Award presented to the outstanding teacher in the School, selected by its student body.

Overview: Courses taught by Dr. van Gelder since his arrival at Purdue University.