text: Smith continued his academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota in 1980, later becoming associate professor in 1986 and Professor in 2004. In 2011 he served as Distinguished Engineering Education Innovation (EI) Fellow at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He retired from the University of Minnesota in 2011 and between 2006 and 2022 he served as Cooperative Learning Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University's School of Engineering Education. Also since 2011, he has held positions as an emeritus Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Geo-Engineering, Morse-Alumni Distinguished University Teaching Professor, and Faculty Member at the Technological Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota. Additionally, in collaboration with Tony Starfield, Alan Wassyng, Sam Sharp, and others, he developed the civil engineering systems and "How to model it" courses for upper division and first-year students, respectively, which, alongside his work in cooperative learning and teamwork with David W. and Roger T. Johnson, led to the creation of the Civil Engineering Project Management course and the Management of Technology Project and Knowledge Management course.
  Between 1999 and 2004, he had a split appointment with Michigan State University where he served as a Senior Consultant to the Provost for Faculty Development. At the University of Minnesota, he was the Co-coordinator of the Bush Faculty Development Program for Excellence and Diversity in Teaching from 1996 to 1997, Director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Civil Engineering from 1999 to 2004, and executive co-director and researcher in the STEM Education Research Center from 2012 to 2018. He was inducted into the Michigan Technological University Academy for Engineering Education Leadership in 2018.