FAMU-FSU wins 2009 NCEES Engineering Award

NCEES is pleased to announce that the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Florida A&M University–Florida State University is the grand prize winner of the 2009 NCEES Engineering Award for Connecting Professional Practice and Education. The award jury met March 12, 2009, in Clemson, S.C., to select the $25,000 grand prize winner.

The department received the prize for its submission, Senior Design Capstone Course: Collection of Projects with Featured Everglades Restoration Project. Through its capstone course, students learn about nontechnical professional issues, such as ethics, teamwork, and communication skills, and complete a design of a civil or environmental engineering project. Professional practitioners participate by giving classroom lectures, providing real-world design projects, mentoring students, and evaluating students’ results.

The featured senior design project included student teams working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on two restoration projects in the Florida Everglades.

The jury praised the project for demonstrating “strong interactions of practitioners with the engineering faculty and students.”

The jury selected five additional prize winners, who will each receive an award of $7,500.

  • University of Arizona 
Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics 
Submission: Practitioner-Led Engineering Experiences
  • University of Missouri–Kansas City 
Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering 
Submission: Redcone Civil Design Group: A Practitioner-Centric Capstone Experience
  • Seattle University 
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 
Submission: Structural Design Package for the Replacement of a County Bridge
  • University of Tennessee at Chattanooga 
Department of Civil Engineering 
Submission: Intermodal Transit Center
  • Virginia Tech 
Charles E. Via Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering 
Submission: Land Development Design Initiative
  • The University of Iowa’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering received an honorable mention for its submission, Pilot Program for Expanding Connections between Professional Practice and Education.

The NCEES Engineering Award recognizes engineering programs that demonstrate meaningful partnerships between professional engineers and students. All EAC/ABET-accredited engineering programs were invited to enter projects that demonstrated such a partnership.

The 28 submissions were judged by NCEES members and representatives from academic institutions and professional engineering organizations.

“This is the first year we’ve offered the award,” said NCEES Executive Director Jerry Carter. “We’re very pleased with the interest we’ve had so far, and we look forward to building on these efforts to bring professional engineers and students together.”

Read profiles of the winning projects.