The National Science Foundation recently announced this year’s winners of Grants for Department-Level Reform of Undergraduate Engineering Education. An award of a $100,000 for “Civil and Environmental Engineering Program Update for the 21st Century” went to Rice University's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEVE).

Rebecca E. Burnett (University Professor in Iowa State’s Department of English) was a Co-PI on this grant that she co-authored while serving as Acting Director of the Cain Project in Engineering and Professional Communication and Visiting Professor at Rice University (January – June, 2005). Burnett worked on this grant with PI Phil Bedient and co-PIs Pedro Alvarez and Ahmad Durrani, all in CEVE at Rice University. NSF Grants for the Department-Level Reform of Undergraduate Engineering Education enable departments to plan and/or implement some or all of these activities:

• Engage faculty in the scholarship of learning and teaching on a department wide basis
• Develop, implement, assess, and disseminate comprehensive plans to reformulate, streamline and update engineering degree programs
• Develop, implement, and assess department wide transformational change of student learning experiences
• Incorporate service learning opportunities into engineering programs,
• Meet the emerging workforce and educational needs of U.S. industry
• Incorporate methods for integration of research and teaching.

Bedient, Alvarez, and Durrani as well as members of the Cain Project in Engineering and Professional Communication are working on curriculum plans during this academic year. Burnett will work on the Rice University CEVE curriculum project again during summer 2006.