Engineering students at UA Little Rock have a new space to learn more about what’s happening underneath buildings and structures.
Officials with the school's Department of Construction Management and Civil and Construction Engineering dedicated the new James A. Rogers Soils Lab in a ceremony Monday. UA Little Rock alum Chris Meyer, owner of James A. Rogers Excavating in Little Rock, donated $50,000 toward the renovation project.
"Being a part of this program and being able to give back means everything to me. Helping with the next generation, teaching students what soils truly means," Meyer said.
UA Little Rock senior Cameron Webb also serves as president of the school’s chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He says studying different soil types is a crucial, if not overlooked, component of engineering.
"One is structural, which we have a lot of structural classes on campus, but the other, which is greatly overlooked but it's very, very, very important, is soil engineering," Webb said. "Because your soil will determine if your building will fail or fall, which you really don't want to happen."
Webb says a number of factors, including water and sand content, influence where and how new construction projects are built. He says the new space will help bridge the gap between learning theory and applying it in experiments, and later, beyond the classroom.
"Let's say... we use a test. Now we don't have to go to a whole different classroom to test it, instead you can just turn your head."
Webb says soil engineering is a key component of the Fundamentals of Engineering, or FE, Exam, a licensure test which UA Little Rock engineering students must pass in order to graduate.
While Webb says he's set his sights on transportation engineering rather than focusing on soils, he said he feels confident enough to ace his first try at the exam in just two weeks.
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