Support for the Professor Training Course for Geosynthetics

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More education is needed to teach undergraduate civil engineering students how to use geosynthetics to provide more cost-effective designs to construct and maintain the U.S. infrastructure. Industry and government need graduating engineers well-versed with geosynthetics, while universities seek a method to meet this need. The Professor training Course in Geosynthetics will meet this need. Geosynthetics are starting to be used in civil engineering structures, but few graduating civil engineers receive instruction on how to use them. Currently, many of the practicing engineers that use them do so without an adequate background. Because geosynthetics can provide less expensive, more elegant and more efficient designs, there is a need to improve the education of undergraduate civil engineering students, so they can design with geosynthetics with confidence. Geosynthetics (polymeric materials used in civil engineering projects), can provide cost-effective materials to engineers building and rebuilding the infrastructure. Geosynthetics are used in roads, landfills, earth slopes, dams, retaining walls, erosion control, drainage structures and agriculture. This Professor Training Courses for Geosynthetics is designed to answer these problems. The Course objectives are to: 1. teach Civil Engineering professors about geosynthetics, so they can teach undergraduates about geosynthetics. 2. provide class notes for the professors to use in incorporating geosynthetic designs in their undergraduate university courses, and 3. provide motivation, samples, informational contacts, and instructional materials to the professors to incorporate geosynthetics instruction in the classroom, and allow continued learning. The Courses will be offered, once a year, tuition-free, to thirty five professors unac- quainted with geosynthetics. These objectives will be met through an intense week-long series of seminars. The professors receive instruction from experts from government, academic, and the private sector who are teachers, researchers and practitioners in geosynthetics.