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SUCCESS STORIES

• Changing Roles from Student to Teacher
• Engineering Professionalism at CAEE
• West Texas Floodplain Study
• Learning to Think Like an Engineer
• Alumnus Understands the Value of Passing on Experience
• Spreading Enthusiasm and Sharing Expertise Opens Doors
• Challenge as the Foundation for Success
• Grad Student's Perspective on Geotech Program
• Breakthroughs in Earthquake Engineering
• Providing Critical Data on Energy Consumption
• Advancing Clean Energy
• Commitment to Sustainability Shapes Lifelong Path

Engineering Profesionalism at CAEE:
Learning By Doing

Failures of the New Orleans’ hurricane protection system still haunt Geotechnical Engineering Professor Bob Gilbert. But his concern for human safety was a call to action that will benefit our students for many years to come. His post-Katrina assessment of levee-failurerisks, alongside the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, convinced him that engineers need to have a stronger voice in setting public policy. As such, he developed an Engineering Professionalism Course, CE 171P, that will be required for all civil engineering students. The course relies on seminars with outside speakers to address topics such as ethics, professional licensure, business and law, public policy, leadership and life-long learning. Examples of seminar topics include:

• “Business of Being a Professional Engineer” with Randy Poston (BSCE ‘78, MSCE ‘80, PhD ‘84), Principal of Whitlock, Dalrymple, Poston & Associates

• “The Anderson Lane Walmart and the Public” with City of Austin Director of Watershed Protection and Permitting, Victoria Li (MSCE ‘80)

• “The IH-35 Bridge Collapse and Engineering Practice” with CAEE Professor and forensic analysis consultant Karl Frank

• “Engineers and Public Policy” with policy consultant and a former Austin City Council member, Brigid Shea

• “Climate Change and Engineering” with Research Associate Professor and Atmospheric Scientist at the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech, Katharine Hayhoe.

What makes this course particularly unique is its service-based learning component. A partnership has been formed with the City of Austin Public Works Department, where students contribute individually and in teams by working on coordinated projects with the City. Last spring, three groups of students worked on the development of the Country Club Creek Trail, a hike and bike trail in southeast Austin. The students had the opportunity to interact with a client and the public - they balanced technical and nontechnical factors, worked with professional engineers through the ASCE Austin Branch, and ultimately provided a useful service for the City.

“I felt the course stressed that civil engineers are not just responsible for the functionality and safety of the systems we design, but for the human elements such as public perception, ethics, and disparate impact as well”, says CAEE student Matthew Homer.

Students also created a brochure for the public explaining the purpose of and logistics for recreational easements. As a result of this hands-on project, students were exposed to real-life issues that practicing engineers face, such as activists who want a beautiful trail regardless of cost and wary property owners who do not want to grant the necessary easements to make it happen. Seeing such complexities of a public-oriented project was constructive for all students involved.