PARETTI Marie C. Paretti, assistant professor in the Dept. of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, has won a $405,308 award from the National Science Foundation for her research on engineering capstone course experiences for students and faculty. “They are so central that ABET, the accreditation agency for engineering, requires every accredited program to provide them for undergraduates,” she says. Her research explores how engineering faculty use capstone courses to effectively balance roles as teachers, evaluators and mentors to best support student learning. She says the award will enable her to expand her study of faculty expertise in this
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., has enrolled the first class of students in its new master’s degree program in structural engineering. The 10-month residential program is designed to provide civil engineers with added expertise in design and analysis of large structures. It features a three-course sequence in structural design, including work on a group project that focuses on design of a building, bridge or other major structure and a small team project to explore design challenges related to personal interests such as urban renewal in the U.S. or construction of water systems in the developing world, says the university. Students will
Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ontario, has opened an 88,000-sq-ft Skilled Trades & Apprentice-ship Research, Resources and Training institute (STARRT) as part of a $24-million renovation of its Stoney Point, Ontario, campus. The center is designed to promote the benefits of apprenticeship in construction and other vocational trades to middle and high school students and others. The new facility includes two roof-mounted vertical wind turbines for renewable energy production and demonstrations, and new labs and machine shops. Mohawk College is southern Ontario’s leading skilled trade training center, producing 3,000 apprentices each year. STARRT will nearly double that number, officials say. Related Links:
Starting in January, the College of Engineering at Rowan University, Glassboro, N.J., along with the New Jersey Academy of Aquatic Sciences and Cumberland County College, will use Camden-based Adventure Aquarium to teach freshman and K-12 students as well about science and engineering. The program is funded through a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Faculty and students under Kauser Jahan, chair of Rowan's civil and environmental engineering program, will develop instrumentation for a 100-gallon tank to measure dissolved oxygen and pH levels, outfit a distance-learning classroom at the aquarium and develop experiments and presentations that users can access from
Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters The Empire State Regional Council of Carpenters, which offers apprenticeships in carpentry, floorlaying, piledriving, underwater welding and other craft careers at five centers in New York state, is boosting outreach. Invitations for personalized center tours are being sent to high school students, counselors and local PTAs, as well as groups to attract veterans, reservists and displaced workers who might qualify for direct entry into the four-year program. Related Links: In Challenging Economic Times, Leadership Training Is an Edge Auburn University Students Tackle Mission: No Class Text? Write Your Own Las Vegas University Program Backers
Guy Lawrence / ENR The industry may have a workforce crisis on its hands, but the quality of its leadership is also under pressure, particularly as firms and other organizations face a challenging future. Ensuring that employees from the CEO on down can not only run a business day-to-day but also handle crises, prompt teamwork and inspire innovation takes more than management skills—it requires an effective leader. Many great industry leaders are naturally gifted or refined their skills on the job under fire. But companies and other entities now are taking more deliberate steps to educate and groom the next
Project Manager. Auburn University student author edits construction-history-book galleys. Some of the world’s greatest structures are architectural wonders, but little or no detail exists about how they were built. Soon, however, ambitious construction students from Alabama’s Auburn University will fill that gap. With help from supportive faculty and industry experts, a lot of hard work and a whirlwind summer trip studying ancient and modern buildings, 21 students from Auburn’s McWhorter School of Building Science will publish the first definitive textbook on the construction challenges of architecture’s global icons. While the book will help teach construction history to Auburn’s future freshmen
Twenty-first century technology is gaining momentum in the staid business of wastewater treatment. Since the federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 fueled the buildout of the nation’s current crop of wastewater treatment plants, municipalities have mostly relied on conventional activated-sludge processes to meet secondary-treatment standards. That is changing now as vendors and engineers tweak membrane systems originally developed to treat drinking water for the more corrosive environment of wastewater. The results are positive, now often producing effluent that greatly exceeds federal standards for secondary treatment at roughly the same cost. MBRs, or membrane bioreactor systems, combine either flat-plate or
Faced with sprawling growth in the greater Seattle area, King County water officials have capitalized on the population’s environmental awareness to push through a $1.7-billion wastewater treatment system that could become the country’s showcase for advanced secondary treatment. Taking advantage of technological advances that lower energy needs and produce an effluent clean enough to be sold for nonpotable use, the county’s division of wastewater control is building a 36-million-gallon-per-day plant, the largest in the U.S. to use membrane bioreactors, borrowing from systems developed to treat drinking water. King County Wastewater Treatment Division The Brightwater plant, located 11 miles north of
Keener competition for construction contracts might have been one positive feature of the global economic slowdown that could have eased the procurement of London’s $30-billion Crossrail transportation project.
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