A former ISU professor has come back from retirement for the second time to teach again. 

“I flunked retirement twice,” said Howard Shapiro, lecturer of mechanical engineering. 

In 2004, Shapiro asked himself if he wanted to finish out his career at Iowa State. At that point, he retired as the vice provost from the university. 

But in 2005, he got a job at Wayne State in Detroit. He said it was an incredible experience getting back in to the administrative side of things at Wayne State.

When Shapiro’s wife passed away in 2011, he decided to come back to Iowa where he had long-time relationships with friends, and also a place where he had family. It was at this time that he retired for the second time from Wayne State.

After his move back to Iowa, he came out of retirement again to take a position as a professor in the engineering department.

“I’m not satisfied just to teach,” Shapiro said. “I’m satisfied to use my students learning as a measure of my teaching and make it a continuous work in progress.”

Shapiro went to college at Ohio State, where he majored in mathematics. During his junior year there, he decided that he needed to pick something to pursue in graduate school that would be practical.

“I didn’t even know anything about engineering,” Shapiro said about when he first made his decision to pursue engineering. He said that upon realizing that he wanted to solve real world problems, he pursued mechanical engineering.

Shapiro got his master’s degree and his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Ohio State as well.

Shapiro came straight to Iowa State from Ohio State in 1975 as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. 

“I really loved being here,” Shapiro said. 

Shapiro taught in the department for 30 years. In the late 1980s, he was elected to the Ames School Board, where he served for nine years. 

Shapiro said this was a life changing part of his career.

“I realized there was a whole discipline of teaching and learning research,” Shapiro said. “It really got me excited as a faculty member.”

Shapiro said he is always looking for ways to improve in the classroom. 

“Every day after class he would ask our TAs’ view points of what he could do to make the class better and ask what the class was struggling with in homework assignments or tests.  He was dedicated to helping students in anyway he could,” said Josh Lehs, student teaching assistant for Shapiro last winter and current graduate student in mechanical engineering. 

Shapiro is also the co-author of a textbook, which is just going into its eighth edition, now with two more co-authors. 

Shapiro said he isn’t planning to stop teaching any time soon. 

“I’ll teach as long as I feel like I’m able to do it effectively,” Shapiro said. 

Since he is technically retired, Shapiro said he has “the best of both worlds.” He gets to teach and spend time with his family and friends, and that is what he says he loves to do. 

Shapiro is leaving a lasting legacy on students here, even those he never personally taught according to Lehs.

“His enjoyment of thermodynamics has, in part, inspired me to continue on with my graduate studies more focused in thermodynamic-related subject areas such as combustion and heat transfer,” Lehs said.