By Ed Hirata

University of Hawaii Civil Engineering, Class of 1956

Just two months ago, we inaugurated the Arthur Chiu Endowed Scholarship in Civil Engineering and today we’re mourning his death.

Like many of you here today, I’m here as a former student to pay tribute to my teacher—a teacher who devoted his whole career to the civil engineering department of the UH College of Engineering.

Dr. Arthur N. L. Chiu came to the University of Hawaii as an engineering instructor some 52 years ago.

I was a student in the first class that Dr. Chiu taught at UH—a three-week route surveying course in the summer of 1953. I can still see him in his white dress shirt, with a bow tie and MIT belt buckle.

From the very first day, his three distinct teaching traits were: lots of homework, pop quizzes and tough six-week exams.

I subsequently took a course from Dr. Chiu in each of my sophomore, junior and senior years. And his trademark of lots of homework, pop quizzes and tough six-week exams was repeated every time.

We used to file our homework papers in a manila folder; and at the end of the semester, it was two inches thick.

I would compare Dr. Chiu to Red Auerbach who coached the Boston Celtics to nine NBA basketball championships. Auerbach’s trademark was getting his team in top physical condition by practicing till his players almost dropped from sheer exhaustion. It was comparable to the homework load we got from Dr. Chiu.

Auerbach also did a great job of teaching his players the offensive and defensive plays he wanted them to run during practice over and over again so that the game was basically a repetition of practice. Dr. Chiu was the Red Auerbach of Civil Engineering.

In fact, the homework overdose that he unleashed on us forced us to learn in self-defense, and the pop quizzes kept us on our toes throughout the semester. The training was so successful that when it came time for the six-week exams, the exams weren’t so tough because we had all that practice.

He also had a compassionate side to him—I remember one six-week exam during which, for some unknown reason, my mind was just not functioning. At the end of the semester when he computed my overall grade, he threw out that one exam and called it an “off-day”.

The true test of the effectiveness of a professor is how well his students do when they enter the world of work. As I progressed in my profession, I thanked God that I had an Art Chiu who was tough on me and forced me to learn. Art Chiu was truly an outstanding civil engineering professor.

However, Dr. Chiu wasn’t perfect. Coming from Singapore, he learned Chinese English. Let me give you some examples. He could never pronounce the word “perpendicular” incorrectly. It always came out “per-PEN-di-cu-lar. Another one was instead of “ don’t know”, it always came out “don’ts know”.

I was fortunate to continue my association with Dr. Chiu after I graduated from UH‑as a fellow employee of Austin & Towill, a local consulting engineering firm, where he worked during the summer vacations; as a fellow officer in the Hawaii Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers; and as friend for the last five decades.

Art and his wife, Katherine, used to join us at our annual UH Engineering Class of 56 reunions for many years.

The Arthur Chiu Endowed Scholarship is our way of honoring this outstanding educator and to thank him for the lifetime of service he has rendered to the UH Civil Engineering Department and the thousands of excellent civil engineering products he has turned out for the last five decades.

To Katherine, Vicky, Greg and the Chiu Ohana, as you grieve the loss of your husband, father, brother and grandpa, you can take comfort in the fact that he lived a full and productive life. His legacy is the thousands of UH civil engineering graduates whom he mentored and who have gone on to successful careers in government and the private sector.

We are privileged to be identified as students of Dr. Arthur Chiu.

Thank you.