Date: March 15, 2016 Greetings Members of the Academy of Civil, Agricultural, and Geological Engineering (ACAGE). It is my pleasure to write you regarding accomplishments and developments in the NMSU Department of Civil Engineering for 2015. It is an exciting time for our students to be pursuing a career in Civil Engineering as reported by the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics which projected a growth of 20% from 2012 to 2022, faster than the average for all occupations (11%) and engineering (9%); this amounts to over 53,500 new Civil Engineering jobs over the 10-year period. Currently, there are roughly 250 students in our ABET-accredited undergraduate program and approximately 90 students (60 MS and 30 Ph.D.) in our graduate program. During the 2014-2015 academic year, we awarded a total of 62 degrees including 48 bachelors, 11 masters, and 3 doctorates. Further highlights of the department including student organizations and scholarships, faculty developments, and research activities, and the ACAGE banquet and homecoming events are provided below. STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS AND SCHOLARSHIPS The NMSU Student Chapter of ASCE participated in the 44th Annual Rocky Mountain Regional Conference hosted by UNM on April 9-11, 2015 and competed with 12 other schools. NMSU placed 1st in the concrete canoe competition, 2nd in the steel bridge competition, and 2nd overall. Both the steel bridge and concrete canoe teams participated in the national competitions. The 2015 National Student Steel Bridge Competition was hosted by the University of Missouri, Kansas City on May 22-23, 2015. NMSU placed 33rd out of 47 finalists from the entire country. The concrete canoe team traveled for the 28th Annual ASCE National Concrete Canoe Competition to Clemson University, South Carolina, on June 20-22, 2015. NMSU placed 10th overall in the races and 14th overall in the entire competition out of 22 national finalist teams. The chapter is now preparing for travel to Denver for their next regional competition on March 31 April 2, 2016
The NMSU Student Chapter of the American Water Works Association (AWWA) / Water Environment Association (WEA) hosted the 12th Rocky Mountain RMAWWA/WEA Student Annual Conference at NMSU, May 21-22, 2015. Chi Epsilon (XE), the civil engineering honor society, traveled to Boston on March 10-12, 2016 to represent NMSU at the National Conclave. Of particular note was the honoring of Dr. Conrad G. Keyes, Jr., as the 64th selected XE National Honor Member which is the supreme level of recognition on the basis of distinguished and pre-eminent accomplishments in the field of Civil Engineering, and outstanding contributions to the objective and purpose of Chi Epsilon. A video presentation honoring Dr. Keyes prepared by the National XE leaders was shown at Conclave. In addition, Dr. Keyes will be recognized locally at the NMSU XE ceremonies and banquet on May 6, 2016 in Las Cruces, NM and also in the Fall of 2016 when the UNM and UTEP XE students visit NMSU. The Civil Engineering Department and ACAGE join in congratulating Dr. Keyes in this most well-deserved recognition. During the 2014-2015 academic year, approximately $80k in undergraduate scholarships were awarded to 80 students including 37 seniors ($37.8k), 21 juniors ($22.1k), 8 sophomores ($7.7k), and 12 freshmen ($12.4k). An additional $6.6k was awarded to graduate students including 3 PhD ($3.3k) and 3 MS ($3.3k). Outside the department, our students also received many other awards at the college, university, and national levels. New endowed scholarships, some of which were created through the NMSU Giving Tuesday initiative at the end of 2015, include the following: J.B. Waters Endowed Scholarship, $235,000 gift to provide scholarships for CE majors from southern New Mexico (preference given to Freshmen level students). Ed and Barbara Foreman Endowed Scholarship, $100,000 gift (matched in equal amount by the NMSU Foundation for Giving Tuesday) to provide scholarships for 8 full-time CE majors (two students from each classification level including Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior). Adelmo and Rebecca Archuleta Endowed Scholarship, $25,000 gift (matched in equal amount by NMSU License Plate Program) to provide scholarships for one or more CE majors (classified as Sophomore or Junior) with financial need and legal residence in New Mexico (preference given to students from rural communities). Dr. Leonard A. Traina Endowed Scholarship, $16,600 gift (matched in equal amount by the NMSU Foundation for Giving Tuesday to provide scholarships for one or more CE majors (preference given to first generation students attending college). These four scholarships amount to a total principle amount of over $500,000 which results in $20k per year. In addition, the ACAGE Silver Anniversary Scholarship fund increased to a total of $17,500 leaving only $7.5k to reach the $25k needed for an endowed scholarship. Taking collectively, the existing and new scholarship funds amount to over $100,000 per year or 100
scholarships of $1,000 each. This is an outstanding endowment that can and will be used to award nearly half of our students with scholarships and also to enhance the recruitment and retention of Freshmen and Sophomore students. The Civil Engineering Department is grateful for your contributions toward financial assistance and student success at NMSU. DEPARTMENT FACULTY AND RESEARCH ACTIVITIES At this time, the CE department has 13 tenured/tenure-track faculty members and is one of the most research active departments at NMSU with annual expenditures of approximately $3.2 million. The faculty are listed below based on research area and the year they started at NMSU: Environmental Nirmala Khandan (89 ), Lambis Papelis (10 ), Pei Xu (13 ) Geotechnical Paola Bandini (02 ), Douglas Cortes (11 ) Structures David Jáuregui (99 ), Craig Newtson (01 ), Tathagata Ray (14 ), Brad Weldon (10 ) Transportation Peter Martin (12 ) Water Resources Salim Bawazir (00 ), Phil King (90 ), Zohrab Samani (87 ) We have two NSF Engineering Research Centers housed in the Civil Engineering Department including Reinventing the Nation s Urban Water Infrastructure (ReNUWIt) led by Dr. Khandan and the Center for Bio-Mediated and Bio-Inspired Geotechnics (CBBG) led by Dr. Bandini. In addition, the department is home to the NMSU Bridge Inspection Program directed by Dr. Jáuregui and the Alliance for Minority Participation (AMP) directed by Dr. King. Due to our research accomplishments, there are plans for the department to be focused in NMSU s Salon Discovery in the Fall of 2016 and 2017. This event is designed to highlight exceptional accomplishments of NMSU faculty, staff and students to the Las Cruces community at large and the department will keep you posted on the dates. There are currently two faculty searches underway in the areas of environmental and structural engineering. After 25 years at NMSU, Dr. Rola Idriss retired in the summer of 2015. Dr. Idriss was a pioneer in the use of fiber optic sensor for structural health monitoring of bridges and apart from her significant contributions to research, she was an award-winning teacher who will be sorely missed in the department. The NMSU College of Engineering also is conducting a search for the new Dean following the summer 2015 retirement of Dr. Ricardo Jacquez. Dr. Jacquez s career at NMSU spanned over 34 years where he was a faculty member, department head, and the Director of AMP in the Civil Engineering Department. The department wishes Dr. Jacquez nothing but the best in his new position as Dean of the College of Engineering, Computer Science and Construction Management at California State University, Chico.
ACAGE BANQUET AND HOMECOMING EVENTS The 2015 ACAGE banquet was held the evening of Thursday, October 22nd, 2015 at the Las Cruces Convention Center and we had approximately 135 attendees including members and their families. A sincere thanks goes out to Ms. Lisa Varin, Ms. Elvia Cisneros, Mr. Keith Roberts and Dr. Conrad Keyes for their assistance with the banquet arrangements. The banquet hosted the 25th year reunion of the 1990 initiates to honor the following members: Mr. James P. Conover (BSCE 64, MSCE 66 ); Mr. C. Hugh Thompson (BSCE 67, MSCE 68 ); Mr. George A. Phillips (BSCE 64, MSCE 65 ); and Mr. Robert M. Evetts (BSCE 69 ). Furthermore, two ACAGE scholarships were awarded at the undergraduate and graduate level. On Friday, October 23rd, 2015 the State of the Department was presented in Hernandez Hall at NMSU to the ACAGE membership for feedback regarding CE enrollment and employment, recruitment and retention, and ABET and continuous assessment. This session was followed by the John Clark Lecture given by the State Engineer for New Mexico, Mr. Tom Blaine, and the initiation of 19 ACAGE members for 2015 including 3 transfers, 9 new members, and 7 new associate members. Due to reduced undergraduate enrollment at NMSU and focus on improved graduation rates, one major challenge faced by all programs is the university s move to the minimum student credit hours of 120. This requirement has mandated that we take a close, hard look at possible changes in our curriculum without jeopardizing the accreditation of our program nor employability of our graduates. We eliminated our senior seminar class and integrated the material into the capstone design courses, and we revamped our water resources sequence of courses. These changes in our major courses reduced our student credit hours by 4 to 127 and a General Education Task Force has been formed at the university and State levels to review our general education requirements. The Civil Engineering Department stands with the College of Engineering in advocating that general education courses comprise no more than 25% of our total student credit hours. The advice and support provided by the ACAGE advisory board will be critical to our program in the near future. The upcoming 2016 ACAGE banquet is being planned for either September 29th or October 20th, the Thursday of the potential Homecoming 2016 weekend. The CE Department will once again host the ACAGE membership on Friday morning of that weekend and the ACAGE Initiation is likely to be held during the afternoon of that Friday, whichever is selected by NMSU Alumni and the football program. Appropriate ACAGE annual dues or donations are needed to be a 2016 Active Member in order to vote for the potential 2016 ACAGE nominees that are listed on http://acage.net. The highlights of the Civil Engineering Department given above are but a glimpse of the extraordinary work of our faculty and students. Two other recent advancements in the department include the hiring of Mr. Stefan Perez as the Associate Engineer and the redesign of our website which will soon be launched at http://ce.nmsu.edu. We have also made strides in improving our classrooms with new document cameras, projectors, and white boards, and the
Chi Epsilon students assisted greatly in our spring-cleaning of the hallways, lobbies, and study areas of Hernandez Hall. However, there are challenges we face in the near future such as the move towards 120 student credit hours and also the impact of the forthcoming State budget cuts for higher education. One way we can all make a significant difference is to better our efforts to increasing our undergraduate and graduate student enrollment in Civil Engineering. With that objective in mind, I respectfully ask that you continue your contributions to our department and also that you serve as ambassadors in advocating our program to promising high school students and potential transfers. Thank you for your support of the Civil Engineering Department and we look forward to working together in moving our program forward. David V. Jáuregui, PhD, PE Department Head of Civil Engineering Timothy Cynova, PE CAGE Academy President