Experts Review CEE at Illinois, Offer Advice for the Future

11/3/2011

External review team praised department’s faculty, research, academic programs and students and offered recommendations for continued excellence.

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The external review team poses with CEE faculty (left to right): CEE Professor Imad Al-Qadi; CEE Professor Praveen Kumar; CEE Professor and Associate Head for Graduate Affairs Al Valocchi; CEE Professor Benito Mariñas; CEE Professor Charlie Werth; Henry T. Yang, Chancellor, University of California at Santa Barbara; CEE Professor Bill Spencer; David E. Daniel, President, University of Texas at Dallas; CEE Professor and Head Amr S. Elnashai; Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, Fred and Claire Sauer Professor of Environmental Engineering and Chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley; CEE Professor and Associate Head for Undergraduate Affairs Liang Liu, Glen T. Daigger, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, CH2M Hill, Denver, Colo.;  Robert L. Street, Campbell Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Environmental  Engineering, Stanford University; and William. F. Marcuson III, Chair, President of W. F. Marcuson III and Associates Inc., Vicksburg, Miss.

 

A distinguished panel of engineering educators, academic leaders and practitioners conducted an external review of CEE at Illinois Oct. 23-25. They praised the department’s faculty, research, academic programs, and students and offered recommendations for continued excellence.
 
The six-person panel—all members of the National Academy of Engineering—spent two days at the department, touring facilities, meeting with College of Engineering and department leadership, faculty, staff and students, and hearing presentations on research, programs and procedures.  Before leaving Urbana, they prepared a report of their observations and recommendations.  The review was the result of a College of Engineering policy that each engineering department will be reviewed every five years.
 
 “We gained strong support for our new direction to offer multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary learning experiences for our students, as well as external, experienced confirmation that our department is at the top of its discipline, not just sailing on its reputation,” said Amr Elnashai, Professor and CEE department head.
 
The review team applauded the interdisciplinary educational, research and organizational initiatives of the department and made clear recommendations for improvements, which will form the basis for a firmer strategy and implementation plan.  Committee members also agreed to continue to advise the department in this implementation.
 
Members of the review panel were: William. F. Marcuson III, Chair, President of W. F. Marcuson III and Associates Inc., and past president of ASCE ; Lisa Alvarez-Cohen, Fred and Claire Sauer Professor  and Chair, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley; David E. Daniel, President, University of Texas at Dallas; Glen T. Daigger, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, CH2M Hill; Robert L. Street, Campbell Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil and Environmental  Engineering, Stanford University; and Henry T. Yang, Chancellor, University of California at Santa Barbara.
 
Some quotes from the report appear below:
 
  • Needless to say, Illinois CEE is one of the top-ranked Civil Engineering programs in the country.  This reputation is clearly associated with a number of unique strengths which are inherent in this ranking.  This includes a faculty with an outstanding historic research record, a long tradition of graduating highly productive students who are contributing to solving important problems and building successful engineering practices and businesses, and a tradition of providing service to the state of Illinois and the nation.  Of course, rankings tend to be more retrospective than reflective of the current situation.  However, an outstanding reputation positions any organization for continued success, should that organization continue to build on their strengths and anticipate and meet evolving needs.

 

  • The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering has a well-funded portfolio of research that is both deep and wide. The quantity and quality are competitive with the best CEE departments in the world. As a result, the University of Illinois’ CEE department enjoys a very strong reputation nationally and internationally for its research.

 

  • The quality of the research in the CEE department is very strong. We found the facilities and research topics to be consistent with the highest standards. This undoubtedly reflects the exceptionally high level of capability of the faculty, the outstanding students in the department, and the excellent facilities (especially experimental facilities in some areas of the department).

 

  • The department’s research is among the very best research of any CEE department in the world. In the spirit of “to whom much is given, much is expected,” the strength of research places the CEE department [at Illinois] in a position of great opportunity. Few CEE departments in the world have the intellectual muscle in faculty and students, facilities, or partners on campus and contacts around the world to tackle society’s really big problems. The CEE department [at Illinois] has these assets, has the ability to strengthen them over time, and has an opportunity to lead in addressing some of society’s most vexing problems. It is this area where we believe there is opportunity to be even better.

 

  • We were greatly impressed with the quality of the undergraduate and graduate students that we met.  They were bright, committed to the field, and enthusiastic.  Both sets of students expressed their appreciation for, and devotion to, the department. The students expressed their opinion that their educational experience is meeting their expectations.  They expressed satisfaction with the teaching, the approachability of the professors, and the overall curricula.

 

  • One unique feature of CEE is the quality, capability, and diversity of its laboratory facilities.  Nationally recognized and utilized facilities serve the environmental (water), structures, transportation, and water resources areas and provide opportunities to conduct unique and “game changing” research.  These facilities provide the ability to investigate sophisticated, complex and relevant problems.  Coupled with computational capabilities, these facilities further provide a unique opportunity to translate these physical observations into analysis techniques which can be broadly applied.
 

 


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This story was published November 3, 2011.