TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The advisory board of the University Transportation Center for Alabama has selected University of Alabama engineering graduate student Patrick Clark as the 2003 UTCA Student of the Year.

An award of $1,000 accompanies the honor of selection as the outstanding transportation student from the three campuses of the UA System.

Clark, a native of Huntsville, will be recognized for the award at the annual banquet of the Council of University Transportation Centers in Washington, D.C.

“We are proud to have Patrick in our graduate program. He is an outstanding engineering student who has worked hard to earn this prestigious title,” said Dr. Daniel Turner, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of UTCA.

Clark has received other honors including UA’s 2002-2003 National Alumni Association Graduate Fellowship and Graduate Scholarship awards.

UTCA was created in 1999 by UA’s Board of Trustees, and it conducts transportation education, research and technology transfer activities using faculty members and students from UA, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

In 1837, UA became the first university in the state to offer engineering classes and was one of the first five in the nation to do so. Today, the College of Engineering, with about 1,900 students and more than 90 faculty, is one of the three oldest continuously operating engineering programs in the country and has been fully accredited since accreditation standards were implemented in the 1930s.