Civil Engineering Students Compete in National Concrete Canoe Competition

This April, in their second year of eligibility, the UT Tyler civil engineering student chapter of ASCE competed in the Texas Section Annual 2009 Concrete Canoe Competition. The team traveled to South Padre Island, Texas and represented the University with distinction. With the canoe "THE KREWE OF REX", the team took 1st place overall out of 10 teams, besting universities such as Texas Tech, UT Austin, The University of Houston, UT El Paso and Texas A&M. The team placed 1st in the Design Report portion of the competition.

Winning the Texas-Mexico Regional qualified the team to travel to Tuscaloosa, Alabama to compete in the 2009 National Concrete Canoe Competition on June 11-13, 2009. The canoe weighed in at 428 pounds, the heaviest at this year’s national competition. It took 13 people to sink the canoe.

The team competed in 3 person men’s and women’s endurance races, two person men’s and women’s sprint races, and a co-ed sprint race with two men and two women paddlers. On the second day of competition, the team delivered their oral presentation first and finished 21st out of 22 teams.

The group earned the ASCE Spirit of the Competition Award, recognizing their good spirit, camaraderie and instances of aiding other competitors.  They received a standing ovation at the awards ceremony that night when the award was announced. UT Tyler finished 19th out of all of the concrete canoe teams in the nation in 2009.

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson visits CECS

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) poses for a photo opportunity with students in a UT Tyler Ratliff Building South lab. The senator made a visit to UT Tyler Jan. 16 to hear a briefing on the university’s Sciences, Technology, Education and Mathematics Center.

U.T. Tyler Students Present Research Posters at Singapore Conference

Two students from U.T. Tyler participated in the Futuropolis 2058: Creating Sustainable Urban Environments through Innovation Conference held October 21 – 22, 2008 in Singapore.  The students presented the results of their undergraduate research activities conducted under the supervision of faculty mentors during the LSAMP Summer Research Academy.  Posters were presented by Abby Roth (senior Chemistry major – faculty mentor Dr. Tanya Shtoyko – hometown Wills Point, Texas) and Heather McBride (senior Chemistry major – hometown Tyler, Texas).

Dr. Stephen B. Rainwater, Interim Chair and Chandler Professor of Computer Science, accompanied Ms. Roth and Ms. McBride in his role as campus director of the U.T. Tyler Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program.

In addition to the conference, the U.T. Tyler delegation visited Singapore Management University and the National University of Singapore.

The UT-LSAMP program is supported by the National Science Foundation and provides undergraduate research experiences in an effort to increase the number of underrepresented students pursuing graduate level studies in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs.