Civil engineering is everywhere – from the switch you flip to turn on the light in the morning to the roads you use to get home at the end of the day. Given the renewed interest in infrastructure lately, it’s no surprise that issues such as traffic congestion and new construction make the headlines each and every day. When journalists are insightful in their reporting, citizens can play a more informed role in the infrastructure debate that shapes their communities.

Many of you are probably aware of ASCE’s Excellence in Journalism Award. The award recognizes outstanding news stories that enhance public understanding of the role and impact of civil engineers and civil engineering in designing solutions for clean water, transportation, the environment and other public works projects. Journalists and producers from English-language, general interest regional and national newspapers, radio and television stations, magazines, and electronic and Web-based news outlets are all eligible.

So that brings me back to my original question – have you read any good news stories lately? Civil engineering-related news stories, in particular. Consider nominating them for the Excellence in Journalism Award! Stories eligible for the 2010 award must have appeared between May 1, 2008 and Oct. 31, 2009. Entries must be postmarked by Dec. 1, 2009, but it’s not too early to start keeping your eyes open for those stories worth nominating! (You can find more information on criteria and submission guidelines here.)

ASCE Sections and Branches are encouraged to conduct a local Excellence in Journalism Award competition along the lines of the national competition and nominate their local winner for the national competition. This is also a great opportunity to start getting to know some of your local reporters.

Click here to check out the 2008 Excellence in Journalism Award winners, Veronica Castelo and Jenna Hiller of News 8 Austin for their series of stories on Texas dams. (Also the winners of the Texas Section’s Excellence in Journalism Award!)

Send me an email if you have any questions and let’s see some of those stories! Feel free to link to some of the stories you’ve seen lately in the comments area below.

Karen Albers
Manager, State Public Relations

As with other public relations efforts, setting goals and measuring outcomes is an important part of the ASCE pre-college outreach process. After all, if you don’t know what you hope to achieve before you begin, how can you tell if you have succeeded in what you set out to do? Hopefully for all of us in the civil engineering community, this is intuitive. Brainstorm, design, build, test and evaluate, redesign, build, test….  You recognize it as the engineering design process! It’s how we make things better!

Recently ASCE Pre-College Outreach has been doing some testing and evaluation of its own by initiating two assessment projects. The first is the launch of our online Pre-College Outreach survey to get feedback from our member volunteers and learn about the scope of pre-college outreach across the country. Although we think we know what volunteers are doing in their Sections and Branches, we have set out to get a better measurement of how, where and with whom our members are conducting their pre-college outreach programs in their communities. You can help with this assessment by taking the survey. Your feedback will help us evaluate our current volunteer network and build an even stronger one!

Another assessment we recently finished was a focus group study of more than 120 students in grades 4 through 7 to observe their response to the newly launched ASCEville Web site! We hoped to learn if our target audience had been calibrated accurately and whether the features we hoped would interest kids, actually got kids excited about civil engineering. Most importantly, we took a close look at their recommendations to learn what they would like to see on the site to make it even more informative and fun. Many of our findings led to improvements currently being implemented!

The value of setting goals and measuring outcomes cannot be overstated. Before you begin your next pre-college outreach effort, be sure to pause and ask yourself, “What do I hope to achieve?” Consider gauging not only the number of kids you reach, but the quality of the overall outreach event. Measures of effectiveness can include: Did we reach students with the right messages? Did students have a positive response to what they heard? Did we forge new relationships with community partners who share our interest in bringing information about civil engineering to kids? Did we have fun doing it?

Testing and evaluating is easy with a little bit of advanced preparation and follow through. I’ll be talking more about ways to assess your pre-college efforts in the future. In the meantime, begin to establish a habit of assessment at the local level to help you reach your goals and help us reach our national goals. Attracting kids to the profession of civil engineering and teaching the public about the important role civil engineers play in shaping the future remains high on our list of priorities!

Leslie Payne
Manager, Pre-College Outreach

Blogging has become a key component of outreach efforts, since it’s a great way to reach members and others interested in your group’s activities. Several ASCE Sections and Branches have started branching out into the world of blogging. A blog can give a voice to your group or to a leader, and the comments generated in reaction can foster good, enlightening dialogue between your blog and its readers — when managed properly. Blogs that aren’t moderated, or seem loose about the kinds of comments allowed, can spin out of control and become counterproductive, even harmful to the blog’s reputation. 

Do you have a policy or some guidelines for your blog’s comments? Consider these suggestions to help you ensure a good dialogue.

Have a moderator who can make judgments about the propriety of comments. You can choose to allow comments to be posted live, immediately, with a prompt, periodic review later, or review each submitted comment before permitting its posting. The follow-up review strategy is fine as long as comments are reviewed frequently. However, this clearly runs the risk of inappropriate comments appearing live on the blog for a time.

What constitutes an inappropriate comment? That can vary according to your own standards, but these elements generally do not help facilitate a positive conversation:

• Unrelated to the blog topic.
• Ad hominem attacks on the blogger or fellow commenters, or items otherwise expressing an excessively hostile tone.
• Overly lengthy comments; readers will typically just skip over them.
• Submissions that do not express the commenter’s own thoughts; i.e. merely duplicating someone else’s writing at length. The commenter should write in his or her own words and supplement as needed with links to items supporting their views.
• Spam/advertising.

Moderators must exercise neutrality, especially for a blog representing a group; the only exception can be when an individual self-moderates his or her own blog, but that still should be avoided, or at the very least made plain to readers. Encouraging a healthy dialogue means accepting comments that may run counter to the moderator’s personal views. If a perception of bias develops over which kinds of comments are or are not permitted, it can permanently taint the blog and destroy the dialogue.

Here’s hoping this guidance is useful as you write or manage a blog. Have you had any sticky situations or can you foresee any that these tips don’t address? Let me know in a comment below (on-topic, thanks )

John Marston
Web Content Editor

Oh…the lazy days of summer! The kids are out of school and everyone is looking for a little fun in the sun. But as we enjoy our summer vacations, thoughts of the approaching fall season are coming into view on the horizon. Now is a great time for your Section or Branch to plan K-12 engineering outreach in your local area for the new school year. ASCE Pre-College Outreach can provide you with guidance to help you introduce kids to civil engineering and promote the profession.   

Here are some steps you can follow to prepare:

• Sign up to become the designated outreach contact for your Section or Branch. ASCE Pre-College Outreach has a growing program and we need support at the local level. As an outreach contact, you will be responsible for receiving and distributing important outreach program updates, invitations, local volunteer opportunities and other information on behalf of your Section/Branch. This is a great opportunity for your Section/Branch to get involved in outreach by becoming a part of our community. Sign up today!
   
• Contact ASCE Pre-College Outreach for a sample packet of material resources. Outreach has an assortment of hands-on activity guides, brochures, posters and handouts to help jump start your local outreach effort. You can use these resources to prepare an outreach event or career day presentation. Visit ASCEville to preview some of the resources we have available. Email outreach@asce.org to order outreach materials or request a sample outreach packet for your Section/Branch.
• Identify where you can promote civil engineering to kids. Now that you have the resources, develop a list of possible people to contact within your local community to get started. Try connecting with local colleges, community centers, libraries and museums to inquire about your interest in opportunities to introduce kids to civil engineering. At the start of the school season, contact your child’s school or school system regarding planned career day events on the school calendar and your interest in being involved. Then contact us and let us know how we can help.  
• Visit ASCE’s new Web site for outreach volunteers. The site will provide you with inspiration and a supportive network.
• Take our first online Pre-College Outreach Survey. Help us learn more about outreach volunteerism around the country. As an additional incentive, if you take our survey, you will be entered into a drawing to win an iPod Classic!

How is your Section/Branch preparing for the new pre-college outreach season? We’d love to hear from you!

Shana Gipson
Senior Coordinator, Diversity and Pre-College Outreach