Building a Reputation: Pitt ASCE Student Chapter Wins Third Distinguished Chapter Award in Three Years
PITTSBURGH (April 3, 2018) … Civil and environmental engineering students from the University of Pittsburgh Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) have sustained their reputation for another year as the most outstanding chapter in Region 2 of the professional society. The chapter has won the award for the past three years.
“Not only did the club do an excellent job of enhancing civil engineering students’ experiences at Pitt, but they also grew by about 20 percent, furthering their impact now more than ever,” says Anthony Iannacchione, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and faculty advisor to the student chapter.
The Pitt ASCE student chapter contains about 170 members from the undergraduate civil and environmental engineering program at Pitt. They interact regularly with other student and professional chapters from ASCE Region 2, which includes Washington, DC, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and parts of northern Virginia. Judges select the regional winner of the Distinguished Chapter Award based primarily on activities recorded in the Student Chapter’s Annual Report.
“Of all the challenges and obstacles we overcame this year, the greatest was the student-run career fair for civil engineering undergraduates,” says Chaz Donnelly, 2017-18 president of Pitt ASCE. “We brought representatives from 22 civil engineering companies to the campus so students could meet them and learn about internships and employment opportunities.”
In 2017, the Pitt chapter also hosted the Region 2 student assembly, which included seven universities, five speakers, and a “Bridges of Pittsburgh” Dinner Cruise. The boat tour featured Pitt Professor John Oyler explaining the history of the surrounding bridges as the boat traveled under them along the city’s three rivers.
The chapter members logged an impressive amount of hours doing volunteer work throughout the year on projects such as making holiday cards to send to hospitals throughout the region, the Toys for Tots charity toy drive, and joining more than 3,000 Pitt students to volunteer throughout Pittsburgh during Pitt Make a Difference Day.
At the Middle School Engineering Day, members showed local middle school students how to build balsa wood bridges and demonstrated how forces work. They also had a newspaper tower competition and brought samples of concrete and steel to provide students with a hands-on way of learning about different kinds of building materials.
Last year, the chapter also received awards for their performance at the Ohio Valley Student Conference hosted by Ohio State University. The competition brought together civil engineering students from 13 universities throughout Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Pitt ASCE won first place overall in the surveying and environmental review paper categories.
For more information about Pitt ASCE, visit: http://pittasce.weebly.com/
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Contact: Paul Kovach