Institutional Support to NCSU

Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering (CCEE) specialists support the Construction Engineering and Management Group of the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University. In addition to teaching courses both at the graduate and undergraduate levels, CCEE specialists developed the first distance-learning course in “Fundamental Aspects of Concrete Technology” followed by “Project Management in Construction”, “Legal Aspects of Contracting,” and now under development, “Risk and Finance in Construction.” These courses fulfill a significant educational need detected within engineering and construction professionals currently unable to access this knowledge through regular on campus for credit classes.

Training and Educational Support to North Carolina Organizations

The extension specialists developed short courses taught twice a year by NCSU as part of the North Carolina Home Builders Association’s Graduate Home Builders Institute. The Builders Mutual Insurance Company agreed to have CCEE specialists as their sole resource for safety training to their Spanish-speaking members. The CCEE specialists in partnership with the student organization Engineers Without Borders are teaching a safety class for Spanish speaking workers. This effort has caught the attention of the North Carolina Department of Labor and is being used as a model to attract and train an elusive Spanish speaking workforce. CCEE provided support to the North Carolina Associated General Contractors to inform and recruit young students on the benefits of working in the construction industry. In close cooperation with the American Concrete Institute, CCEE specialists are providing courses leading to certification in concrete technology.

Applied Research and Product Development Assistance

Working through the Institute of Construction in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, the CCEE specialists actively reach out to construction related industries and offered technical assistance in this new area of civil engineering and construction services. A recent success has been the work in a project titled ” Investigation of Porous Concrete.” As a result of this investigation, CCEE specialists are contributing to the development of criteria and guidelines for “best management practices” to develop land utilizing a material that can satisfy environmental concerns related to water run-off, while maximizing land utilization. The goal is to deliver quality technical services to the manufacturing community in North Carolina with the expectation of providing North Carolina clients with a significant economic impact.

International Outreach

CCEE specialists initiated an effort to engage international organizations and expand the reach of products and services in areas of potential benefit for North Carolina and North Carolina State University (NCSU). As a result of this effort, CCEE specialists have been instrumental in the development of two cooperative educational projects with two Universities in South America: The Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas-Venezuela (UCAB) and the Escuela Politécnica Nacional (EPN) in Quito-Ecuador. As a result, the UCAB and NCSU has provided a civil engineering “practicum” for Venezuelan engineering students during the summers of 2001 and 2002. Also, through a partnership with the Industrial Extension Service (IES), the CCEE specialists continue to promote IES’s Quality and Process Improvement know-how to support a comprehensive quality initiative by the Ecuadorian government.

Generic Technical Support

All previously described activities have been originated and complemented by a day to day contact of CCEE specialists with individuals, organizations and institutions involved in the construction industry. Contacts of CCEE specialists have ranged from that of an elderly woman needing help with a foundation in her home, to a large corporation requiring testing to develop a new construction product, to a foreign government inquiring about a new technology where IES and/or the extension specialists have knowledge and experience.