IECA’s University Partners: Connecting to our Future

July 1, 2011

As education director for IECA, I obviously am concerned about the future of our association in general-and our education in particular. On a recent trip to the Land and Sea Grant Conference at Hilton Head, SC, I was introduced to a whole new world of erosion control and water quality professionals. There were at least 50 academic institutions all together under one roof, presenting the results of their research. As I attended their presentations and visited more than 150 poster presentations, I became overwhelmed with the possibilities for our association. I was looking at our future industry leaders. How could I connect these students and their academic leaders to IECA and our wealth of experienced professionals?

Members Are the Key
I was disappointed to find that very few of the attendees even knew about IECA. As I considered our membership demographic with an average age of 50 years, I was again left wondering why we had not tapped into this large community of future industry professionals before. How could we connect our future to our past and our present?

Then I noticed that among the attendees were some of our more active members. These members are professors and academic leaders who have gained the respect of their colleagues and are well respected within our association too. There was our connection! We needed to somehow tap into those educators who already knew of our contributions and successes and create opportunities for their students to be involved in IECA. At that point, the idea of the University Partners was born.

I began to initiate calls to some of our Professional Development Committee members, which led to the formation of a process for connecting with these students. A group of our academic members who also were at the conference was identified and called upon, and, after several months of conversations, we formed the following purpose and set of objectives for the program.

University Partners Objectives       
The IECA University Partners initiative is an informal relationship with universities and colleges that offer courses in the fields of erosion control, sediment control, and stormwater management. The overall objective of this program is to introduce young professionals to our association and to provide a means for them to interact in an educational environment with industry professionals who make up IECA’s membership.

The attempt, on IECA’s part, is to recruit 10 partners in 2010 who might have an interest in the program. To implement this process, IECA’s Education Department will approach members who work in the college and university environment and who have expressed an interest in our program.

The following are suggested ways of building and nurturing these relationships:

  • Invite university students who have conducted research in the field to submit their papers for presentation at the Environmental Connection conference.
  • Encourage point-of-contact members at each university to engage students in local and regional IECA events.
  • Utilize current and former students as moderators for IECA’s annual conference classes, allowing students to interact with industry professionals and to experience the best of IECA’s education.
  • Provide a means for chapters to offer educational scholarships to potential professionals through their universities or through the IECA
    conference.
  • Encourage the submission of articles for IECA publications from university students and faculty.

Our hopes are to forge strong relationships with our University Partners and to strengthen IECA’s education with the inclusion of university research. Last year, the following universities agreed to be part of our University Partner program. Listed here are the names of the schools and our point of contact members:

  • North Carolina State University
    Rich McLaughlin
  • Auburn University
    Earl Norton
  • Colorado State University
    Chris Thornton
  • Shasta College
    John McCullah
  • Texas A&M University
    Jett McFalls
  • California Polytechnic Institute
    Brett Hallock
  • University of Tennessee
    Timothy Gangaware
  • University of Georgia
    Mark Risse

The critical piece to making this program work is our point of contact members and professors. These are the individuals who know the value of our association and who can create and maintain the link between the universities and IECA.

We also came up with a “bright idea” for EC11. We asked that the university point of contacts recruit students to moderate our EC11 classes. Thirteen students served in this capacity in Orlando, Florida, last year. It was an enlightening and exciting experience for the students and the attendees.

These students were able to meet our educators and to learn from a wealth of industry experience.

Our members were encouraged by the students’ excitement and the possibility of their involvement in our association. Two of the students even became members at the conference.

Maintaining Momentum
Now comes the real test. How can we maintain the momentum? Here are a few suggestions: 

  • We will continue to welcome other institutions to be involved. If you know of other schools that might be interested, let us know. Remember, the collaboration works best when we have a member professor or leader in a related field of study as our liaison.
  • We plan to offer a research track at EC12 in Las Vegas, Nevada. We are soliciting abstracts from research conducted by students-not just University Partners, but all student research. We also plan to feature this research in various IECA publications to broaden the reach and impact of the research findings and to give the student authors added exposure to different groups of members.
  • We will continue to invite students to assist with moderating our conference classes. Many chapters have offered travel scholarships to make this possible.
  • We plan to implement a student membership fee  that will encourage students to join IECA. We hope that this reduced fee will lead to student involvement in chapter events as well.

We are excited about the possibilities. As you see these students at our conference and at other IECA events, please welcome them to our team. Get them involved. Consider creating a mentor program. The health and viability of our association depends on welcoming our future to IECA.

For more information on the University Partners program, please e-mail us at [email protected].

Jimmy Eanes, CPESC, CESSWI, CMP, is the IECA education director.