2020 Q1

Officer Elections

Visit from Bob Cagle, P.E.

GeoCongress

Fundraising

2020 Deep South

Conference

COVID-19 and CBU

Graduating Seniors

Special Thanks

Featured Alumni

Giving to the Student

Chapter

Mr. Bob Cagle, P.E. is the Region 4 Director of ASCE. On February 17th he came to visit the CBU campus as part of his journey to visit all of the chapters that encompasses the 8 states and roughly 13,500 members within Region 4. While Mr. Cagle was at CBU he was able to educate the CBU ASCE Student Chapter on how to “master their future” and answered a wide range of questions that chap-ter members had.

Although we have completed the Spring 2020 semester, the students of our ASCE Student Chapter continue to be hard at work during this unique time in history.

In January, the CBU ASCE Student Chapter held elections for the upcoming year. The past officers and new officers are listed below.

2019-2020 Officer Team

President: Luis Camarillo

Internal Vice-President: Francisco Delgado

External Vice-President: Ricardo Velazquez

Secretary: Victor Smith

Treasurer: Sarah Fong

Social Chair: Rosa Santana Ponce

Fundraising Chair: Viridiana Gonzalez

2020-2021 Officer Team

President: Luis Camarillo

Vice-President: Sarah Swain

Secretary: James Baum

Treasurer: Sarah Fong

Social Chair: Katie Shepherd

Fundraising Chair: Rosa Santana Ponce

The following people are featured in this

picture:

Front Row: Andrew Assadollahi, Ph.D., P.E., Rosa Santana Ponce, Sarah Swain, and Sarah Fong

Back Row: Gene McGinnis, P.E., Bob Cagle, P.E. F.ASCE, Luis Camarillo, and James Baum

Due to the shortened amount of time that students were allowed on campus this semester, the students were able to only host one fundraiser, which was the second annual chocolate covered strawberry fundraiser for Valentine’s Day. The ASCE student chapter and great volunteers presold, pre-pared, and delivered the chocolate covered strawberries. All of the funds were raised to go toward the ASCE/AISC student com-petitions that were set for the beginning of April, but due to the rising risk of exposure to COVID-19 it was decided that for the safety and welfare of participants that the events be canceled. These funds will be reserved for the following years ASCE/AISC student chapter competitions.

Dr. Assadollahi and three of his undergraduate research students traveled to Minneapolis, MN in February to the annual GeoCongress conference, the largest annual Geotechnical Engineering conference in the world, where they published a research paper. Dr. Assadollahi presented the paper

that he co-authored with Ashley Martinez, E.I., Viridiana Gonzalez, and Leonardo Garcia De La Cruz involving the effects of recycled crushed asphalt shingles on soil properties when mixed with silt found in Memphis, TN.

They also got to reconnect with Brian Harris, E.I. (CBU Civil Engineering c/o 2016) who will complete his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering at LSU this December.

Featured in this picture from left to right: Viridiana Gonzalez, Leonardo Garcia De La Cruz, Ashley Martinez, E.I., Brian Harris, E.I., and Andrew Assadollahi, Ph.D., P.E..

Featured in the above picture from left to right is: Amanda Dutra, Katie Shepherd, and Sarah Swain.

On March 12th, the last day of terrestrial classes were held on campus due to concerns for the safety and well-being of all that attend campus on a daily bases. The campus quickly went into a time of hustle and bustle as everyone was quickly packing and leaving campus, which ended up be-ing for the duration of the Spring semester. Students, faculty, and staff members had to quickly ad-just to having day-to-day life at home and online to remain safe.

Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, Cisco WebEx, and so many more platforms quickly become essential in continuing to have class, labs, meetings, and even “social events”. These platforms enabled classes to proceed as normal as possible. Presentations, lectures, quizzes, tests, and labs all continued to proceed the best they could. The Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering worked nonstop to continue to provide the best quality education for all students. Faculty members checked in with students on a regular basis outside of the classroom time to ensure that all students were doing well and adjusting to the current way of learning and living. With this being said all students in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department would like to thank Dr. Andrew Assadollahi, Dr. L. Yu Lin, Professor Gene McGinnis, Dr. Holly Enlow, Professor Tarris Greer, Professor Jonathan Fili, Professor Jerry Collins, and Professor Steve Norman for their hard work and dedication to the department and student success.

The 2020 Deep South Conference had to be cancelled due to COVID-19 but CBU is still pleased to say that we are very proud of the ASCE Student Chapter for their hard work and dedication that was put into the countless hours of research, planning, and preparation for the concrete canoe, steel bridge, mead paper, and surveying competitions. In addition to their hard work and dedication to this year’s completion we are proud of all members excitement for next year’s competition that will be held at Louisiana Sate University. The CBU ASCE chapter is looking forward to the time that all members can gather together again at the Deep South Conference to network, strengthen friendships and display their hard work on the projects that they work year round on.

Featured in the above image from left to right is the CE 212 Structural Analysis class. Top row: Sarah Swain, Amanda Dutra, Ashlyn Hinton, and CeCe Rakowski Middle Row: Rosa Santana Ponce, Luis Camarillo, David Jacobs, and Paul Chabaud Bottom Row: Sam Das, Victor Ramirez, and Dr. Andrew Assadollahi

The Civil & Environmental Engineering Department and Christian Brothers University is proud to announce the graduation of our amazing seniors that will be greatly missed. Sari Hamra, Patrick Power, E.I., and Javier Saez graduated in December 2019 and are excelling in life beyond CBU. Jacob Axton, E.I., Christopher Clark, E.I., Viridiana Gonzalez, Viktor Hoestbo, E.I., Patrick Jerome, Ashley Martinez, E.I., and Melvin Portillo are our 2020 graduates. Our graduates are excited to enter the next step of their life and we are excited to see what the future holds for each of them.

Sari Hamra Patrick Power, E.I. Javier Saez

Jacob Axton, E.I. Viridiana Gonzalez Viktor Hoestbo, E.I.

Our chapter would like to give special thanks to Mr. Grettio Rivas! Mr. Rivas is rising Senior in Civil Engineering at CBU and has served as the ASCE Student Chapter Vice President, as well as the Co-Captain of the Steel Bridge Team for 2 years (national qualifier). Mr. Rivas has put in hundreds of hours of work in his leadership positions at CBU, most notably with the Steel Bridge Competition, and is able to maintain a high performance in all of his classes. Our student chapter and the Steel Bridge Team has greatly excelled due to Mr. Rivas’ leadership. We are very proud of Mr. Rivas for his hard work and dedication to the student chapter.

Ashley Martinez, E.I. Melvin Portillo Christopher Clark, E.I.

Patrick Jerome

For the Quarter One 2020 Newsletter, our featured

alumnus is Mr. Ike Griffith, E.I. Mr. Griffith graduat-

ed from CBU in Civil Engineering in 2015 and is cur-

rently a Distribution/Transmission Design Engineer

at Memphis Light Gas and Water (MLGW). Mr.

Griffith has made both resource donations and time

contributions to our department and student chap-

ter. He has devoted his time to mentor several of

our civil engineering students through guest lec-

tures in classes as well as out-of-the-classroom

mentorships. We would like to sincerely thank Mr.

Griffith for all his generosity and dedication to our

department.

If you would like to donate to the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering or the ASCE student chapter through mentorship, volunteering, or by a financial contribution, please feel free to contact our Department Chair and Faculty Advisor, Dr. Andrew Assadollahi, P.E. at aassadol@cbu.edu.

For any financial contributions to the department, you may utilize our Advancement website through the link below. If you wish to give directly to the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, please select "Other" in the designation drop-down menu. Then, type "Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering" in the text box. The default will be a one-time gift. However, you can select "recurring gift" under the Additional Information section.

Donate to the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department

For checks, please make payable to Christian Brothers University and state either “Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering” or “ASCE Student Chapter” in the memo.

Send to:

Attn: Dr. Andrew Assadollahi

Christian Brothers University

650 East Parkway South

Memphis, TN 38104