Community College of Rhode Island Surveying Program Update

Below is an email I received today from the Rhode Island Society of Professional Land Surveyors (RISPLS) regarding the fledgling surveying program at the Community College of Rhode Island.

I want to specifically bring your attention to the sections that I highlighted in bold red letters asking for donations of surveying equipment to be used in the field labs. If you have any suitable equipment that you could donate please contact Debbie McCormick at .

CCRI UPDATE

On April 29^th, the Advisory Committee for the surveying program at CCRI held an emergency meeting to discuss a problem encountered in the program. Students were being told that they would need to take calculus courses in order to take the Land Surveying courses at U.R.I. This was not what was understood by the students and others when the curriculum was set up.

Another problem that came up was that the U.R.I. students had first choice of attendance in these courses which were to be limited to twelve students. With enough U.R.I. students taking these courses, the CCRI students could be left out waiting for openings in the future.

At the NESS Conference Education Round Table discussion, Ed Hanrahan of CCRI asked the other educators on the panel one important question. Was their course Calculus driven? The unanimous opinion of the educators was that calculus was not needed for the two year associate degree, but should be a requirement for the four year degree.

After the discussion ended, Ed Hanrahan had a discussion with Matt Cotta and me about the problems with the calculus requirement and the limit of students in the U.R.I. program. Ed was assured by Matt and me that we would work to help him to solve this problem. What then followed was the emergency meeting of the committee.

The result of the meeting was a change in the program where CCRI will be offering the Land Surveying courses, including lab, at CCRI. For those students wishing to transfer to U.R.I. in the future and to pursue a degree in engineering, they will still take the calculus courses and Land Surveying at U.R.I.

Students have been made aware of these changes and CCRI is planning a fall semester section for Introduction to Land Surveying, with a twelve student maximum enrollment.

Now, the course at CCRI will require three sets of instruments and equipment for the students to use. Currently CCRI has some transits but we need to help them to get total stations and more up to date gear. It would be desirable to have all of the instruments the same, but we will take what we can get.

We are looking to companies and surveyors in Rhode Island to help make this class a reality with the donation of instruments and equipment. If our members would please call Debbie, Matt or myself with what they could donate it would be greatly appreciated.

The Rhode Island surveying community is very progressive in its requirement for registration and one of the leaders in New England. In order to insure our position and to make the road to registration possible, we must support the surveying degree program at CCRI.