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Sustainable Design in the spotlight

Courses offered by the Center for Innovative Technologies (CIT) involving sustainable design practices are attracting statewide attention – and growing enrollment. Admission to the Sustainable Design and Construction Certificate program, which was launched in early fall term 2008, requires completion of the civil engineering technology department’s architectural or construction management major or equivalent coursework. In effect, the certificate program functions as the third year of a bachelor of science degree in construction management (with an emphasis on sustainable design and construction) from Northern Kentucky University. To view the curriculum, click here. For more information, email Ralph Wells or call (513) 569-1789.

Heavy competition in concrete canoe contest

Members of the Cincinnati State chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers are preparing for a spring outing – by doing things like building a concrete canoe and designing a steel bridge that they can build themselves.

The students are getting ready for the 2009 Ohio Valley Regional Conference, which will be held this year at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.

Each year students from Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania compete in a variety of events for bragging rights, trophies, and cash.

These regional competitions – which also feature contests involving surveying, technical papers and documentation of the work that goes into the concrete canoe and bridge projects -- are a particular challenge for Cincinnati State students, since they represent the only two-year institution in the ASCE Ohio Valley Region that competes in every event. That means they routinely come up against such engineering powerhouses as Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pittsburgh, The Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati, the University of Dayton, the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky.

“We compete at the same level they do – and we’re competitive with them,’’ said Carol Morman, the Cincinnati State faculty member who has served as advisor to the school’s ASCE student chapter since 1999.

Put it this way: Over the past 6 years the ASCE chapter at Cincinnati State has come home with 33 prizes.

Morman is confident the Cincinnati State ASCE members will have their canoe -- and their bridge, and their papers, and their surveying teams – ready to go when the regional competition rolls around the first weekend in April.

^{photo: Building first layer of canoe}