Welcome from the Interim Chair

Greetings! I’m pleased to share some important updates and accomplishments with you from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department of the William States Lee College of Engineering. This spring is one of renewal and change for the department. I write to you as the Interim Department Chair whose job it has been to bridge between two permanent leaders. Our outgoing, long-serving chair, Dr. John Daniels, has moved up in University leadership to become the Vice Chancellor for Research. Into this role he brings his immense talent for management, his creativity and vision, and his deep experience as a prolific researcher over the past 20 years. Our incoming chair, Dr. Glenn Moglen, joins our department after leading the USDA Agricultural
Research Service Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory. He is a seasoned researcher and teacher, having held faculty appointments at both Virginia Tech and the University of Maryland.

Our academic programs include undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral degrees. The department is home to 385 undergraduate, 84 graduate students, 31 faculty members, and 8 staff members. This spring we anticipate awarding degrees to 57 undergraduates, eight master’s students and one doctoral candidate. Our students participate in experiential, hands-on projects, resulting in real-world-ready talent. Recently students in the ASCE club garnered great success and recognition at the Carolina’s Conference, held at the Citadel. UNC Charlotte was awarded first-place overall, in Surveying, and in the Innovation competition. We were awarded second place in the steel bridge and concrete canoe competitions. Many students will be traveling to national competitions during the next couple months. We could use your support, so please do not hesitate to call me to talk about how you can help.

In addition to our current majors in Civil Engineering, we are excited to introduce an Environmental Engineering degree to our departmental offerings. The UNC System’s Board of Governors approved our proposal on April 19th, which was a significant milestone of many years of work towards initiating the program. In establishing the degree we seek to satisfy the growing demand for licensed environmental engineers in North Carolina. This new program also meets a desire from students for degrees specialized in environmental engineering. You can find more about this program inside this newsletter. We look forward to our graduates being a driving force of protecting the environment.

Finally, I urge you to remain in contact with the department. If you are an alumnus visiting Charlotte, be sure to stop by, say hello and see what’s new in the department. If you are a local engineering firm seeking civil engineering graduates, call us about joining our career fair. If you know of students looking for a place to obtain the absolute best civil engineering education around, send them our way.
Go Niners!