Education

The educational goal of the Center is to create and ensure a multidisciplinary program of learning that will furnish the transportation industry with qualified graduates, at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

While there is a good breadth of expertise in transportation engineering at USU, there is a shortage of transportation engineering faculty. The Center will be bringing on more transportation faculty to ensure the depth necessary to allow more transportation engineering courses to be taught at Utah State University.

The programs within the Civil & Environmental Engineering department at Utah State University meet both ABET and general education requirements of the university, guaranteeing a multidisciplinary and technically sound education. Furthermore, the Civil & Environmental Engineering department at Utah State University requires that all of its seniors take, and pass, the Fundamentals of Engineering Exam to graduate.

Undergraduate Education

The CEE department requires that a capstone design project must be undertaken by undergraduate students in order to graduate. A goal of this Center is to have a significant number of students (10 to 12) involved in transportation related senior design projects within 4 years.

Each year the LTAP Center provides a number of opportunities for students to work on LTAP projects in a summer cooperative environment. Cooperation between the UTC and LTAP Center should increase the number of students that take advantage of these opportunities.

Graduate Education

From the research point of view, a major effort of the Center will be to increase the number of Ph.D. students in transportation, and related, engineering areas. This will start with a stronger emphasis in recruiting and raising the size of fellowships offered to Ph.D. students, in an effort to be more nationally competitive. The university has a policy of waiving tuition for all Ph.D. students, and the Center will continue to take advantage of that opportunity.