U.S. News ranks UMR among top 50 engineering schools in the nation!

U.S. News and World Report has ranked the Missouri University of Science and Technologyundergraduate engineering program as one of the top 50 in the nation in the magazines's annual guidebook "America's Best Colleges 2007." UMR is ranked 48th in the nation in the guidebook and tied for 26th place among engineering programs at doctoral-granting public universities. U.S. News also ranks UMR at No. 54 among the nation's best doctoral granting engineering schools and No. 112 among national doctoral-granting universities.

Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Hall

The 143,000-square-foot structure is a working "laboratory" in which even the hallways are designed to teach engineering.

"Just by walking down the hall, our students can learn about buildings," says Dr. William Schonberg, chair of UMR's civil, architectural and environmental engineering department.

The $22 million addition and renovation to the Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Building, which houses the UMR civil, architectural and environmental engineering department, features computerized "smart boards" in many classrooms, is outfitted for wireless computing, and features transparent architecture designed to teach students about construction and structural engineering even as they pass through the structure.

The renovated, expanded building also features some of the most modern civil engineering research facilities in Missouri and surrounding states, Schonberg says. Those facilities include a three-story high-bay structures laboratory, which allows researchers to conduct heavy-duty testing of full-scale steel beams and other large construction materials; an expanded hydraulics laboratory designed for the real-time study of rainfall; a rooftop greenhouse for the study of wetlands and environment-cleansing trees; and interconnected environmental engineering laboratories and classrooms.

"Many of these laboratories are the largest and most comprehensive research facilities in the region," says Schonberg.

In addition, the new building brings "95 percent of all our research under one roof," Schonberg says. Previously, several faculty members had to conduct research in other laboratories across campus.

Originally opened in 1960 -- before the era of computers, wireless technology or centralized air-conditioning -- the building was named the Butler-Carlton Civil Engineering Building in 1978 in honor of former civil engineering chairs Joe B. Butler and E.W. "Skip" Carlton. The renovation and expansion project began in the fall of 1999.

The newly completed structure includes 100,000 square feet of new space that includes 29 classrooms, the three-story structures laboratory, the hydraulics lab and an expanded construction materials laboratory. The 43,000 square feet of renovated space includes a student advising complex, computer learning centers, a geotechnical engineering laboratory, graduate research offices and labs, a senior design lab, large classrooms, the Needles Seminar Room (named after 1914 civil engineering graduate Enoch Needles), student lounge areas, and two new lecture halls named for prominent alumni: the Gunther Lecture Hall, funded through a gift from 1960 UMR civil engineering graduate Don Gunther and his wife Rosemary, and the Neil Stueck Lecture Hall, funded through the estate of Cornelius S.P. Stueck, a 1943 civil engineering graduate.

The centerpiece of the new addition is an expansive atrium, funded through a gift from Fred Kummer, a 1955 civil engineering graduate and president of HBE Corp. in St. Louis, and his wife June.

Funding for the $22 million building consisted of $4.5 million in private gifts and $17.5 in state funding, secured in the 1990s.

Outstanding Research

Of the 23 Ph.D.-level faculty members, (which places UMR in the top 12% nationally by size) the Department is honored to have two Curator's professors (emeritus), two named endowed professors, and one Distinguished Teaching Professor.

The program, along with the University's programs in Architectural Engineering and Environmental Engineering, is housed in Butler Carlton Hall. This facility is in the last stage of a $24M renovation project. The new state-of-the-art building centers around a three-story atrium providing a social interaction space, natural lighting and orientation for the department. The updated and enlargement of Butler-Carlton Hall offers modern, expanded research laboratories, high-tech classrooms, offices and administrative spaces. The new facilities allow the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering to expand its programs in structures and infrastructure engineering, hydrology/hydraulics, geotechnical engineering, transportation engineering, materials engineering, construction, and surveying. With this renovation project, the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering continues to pursue academic excellence in the undergraduate and graduate programs it offers.

In the News

The Bridge: Department newsletter
The Phonathon Times: Phonathon report newsletter
UMR News: News, sports, and events at UMR and around the state
UMR Magazine: the online version of the UMR Magazine, the quarterly magazine of the MSM-UMR Alumni Association
The Missouri Miner: UMR's student-run newspaper
"VISIONS" Online Research Magazine
"Technofiles with Vice Provost Wayne Huebner" on Public Radio KUMR