SIUE engineering students win GeoWall competition

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Engineering students won the GeoWall Competition sponsored by the American Society of Civil Engineers last month at the Mid-Continent Student Conference at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla.

“I think it’s gratifying to see such hard work and dedication out of a group of students,” team captain Andrew Burkhard said. “Teamwork is an extremely important aspect of engineering. Life is full of hardships. For us, it was our load frame breaking before competition from testing various wall design combinations as well as loading the frame with quite a bit of weight — approximately 100 pounds each time. But we got motivated, did what we thought was best for the design and brought home the trophy for SIUE.”

Burkhardt’s teammates were seniors Jalen Bachman and David Molohon and graduate student Rabindra Chaulagai. Abdolreza Osouli, assistant professor of civil engineering, is the faculty adviser.

The object of the annual GeoWall competition is for students to design a mechanically stabilized earth retaining wall, and then test for performance in various loading scenarios.

“Our wall held well until the last grains of sand went in and then failed, which was similar to last year’s winner, Arkansas, but their wall failed much quicker than ours,” Burkhardt said. “Our design was quite simple, but strong. The workmanship done by the members of the team was nearly perfect, not quite aesthetically pleasing, but that’s not the point. We are engineers, not architects.”

SWIC to have job fair in Red Bud

Southwestern Illinois College has a spring job fair from 9 a.m. until noon May 5 at the SWIC Red Bud Campus, 500 W. South Fourth St.

All job seekers are welcome and should arrive dressed to impress with plenty of copies of their resumes.

For more information, contact the Red Bud Campus Career Center representative, Ashley Byers, at 618-282-6682, ext. 8126; 866-942-7942, ext. 5562; or ashley.byers@swic.edu.

Top McKendree students honored

Outstanding McKendree University students were introduced at the school’s honors convocation Thursday. They are:

▪  Benjamin Bauer, of Collinsville, computational science

▪  Ron Mudra, of Troy, computer science

▪  Redell Hendricks, of Glen Carbon, English

▪  Cameron Harsey, of Waterloo, for history

▪  Curtis Toler, of Lebanon, psychology

▪  Kailee Rule, of Aviston, business administration

▪  Morgan Maberry, of Bethalto, human resource management

▪  Alexis Sauerwein, of Belleville, marketing

▪  Sam Lidisky, of Swansea, sport management

▪  Lisa Campbell, of Belleville, accounting

▪  Raymond Seeber, of St. Jacob, business administration

▪  Rebeca Gabel, of Lebanon, human resource management

▪  Kellie Beard, of Belleville, management

▪  Amanda Hoover, of Collinsville, marketing

▪  Erin Genteman, of Moro, elementary education, math

▪  Susan Wagner, of Belleville, nursing

▪  Ambrocya Burge, of Belleville, honors program

▪  Allison Harres, of Belleville, honors program

▪  Tyler Jewell, of Granite City, honors program

▪  Rodney McBride, of Belleville, honors program

▪  Brandon Mihalich, of Bethalto, honors program

▪  Samantha Renth, of New Baden, honors program

▪  Hannah Wessel, of Waterloo, honors program

▪  Shaquille Armstrong, of East St. Louis, was recognized was recognized as a 2016 Newman Civic Fellow

Honorees were selected by full-time faculty members based on four major components of the university’s mission: responsible citizenship, engagement, academic excellence and lifelong learning.

This story was originally published May 3, 2016 at 10:17 AM with the headline "SIUE engineering students win GeoWall competition."