2011 Issue

55 F EELIng DISAPPoInTED, PERPLEXED and confused, I approached the civil engi- neering and geography departments at Brigham Young University. They helped me create a designer degree in an- other discipline closely related to surveying that met my needs. I eventually became a licensedprofessional land surveyor, surpass- ingmy goal of becomingagreat party chief; yet a standard surveying degree program was still not available in Utah. I extendedmy dreamto the youngmen and women who followed after me in pursuit of surveyingeducation inUtah, that theywould somehowhave a surveyingdegreeprogram made available to them. I soon discovered that others in Utah’s professional land sur- veying community had dreamed the same dream and taken action. In 1987, the education committee of the Utah Council of Land Surveyors (UCLS), which currently represents about 80% of all professional land surveyors resid- ing in the state, approached Salt Lake Community College (a USHE school) with a proposed joint venture to provide post-secondary surveying education to the people of Utah. The courses in the proposed program were already orga- nized and developed by the UCLS. As part of the program models all survey- ing faculty members must be degreed, licensed, and experienced professional land surveyors who hail from the diverse public and private sectors. The college accepted the proposal and initially placed the new two-year Associate of Applied Science(AAS) Surveying Degree program under the continuing education depart- ment, where it slowly grew and was moved to where it now resides, in the geosciences department in the SLCC division of natural sciences of the school of science, math- ematics, and engineering. The program advisory committee was to be a diverse composite of surveying faculty members (mostly UCLS members) with college administrators, including a full-time surveying faculty member who also serves as the program coordinator. This is the model that’s used today and has proven to be effective and efficient in responding to the needs of the profession, students, the college, and the state of Utah. The courses are flexible and are of- Improving Surveying and Geomatics Education in Utah Walter M Cunningham, PLS I moved my young family from our home in Alaska to Utah in 1983, hoping to obtain a college degree in surveying so I could continue to progress in my surveying career and become the best party chief that I could ever be. I soon realized after the move that no such degree program existed within the Utah System of higher Education (UShE) or within Utah’s major private colleges and universities. fered on-site, online, or in web-enhanced classes to best accommodate students. The program is duly recognized and ac- cepted by the Utah state licensing board for professional engineers and profes- sional land surveyors. After 23 years, the original purposes of the program remain: • Provide students, having little or no experience, with the skills needed for employment as a surveyor; • Give those already working in the pro- fession additional knowledge needed to prepare for their professional licensing examinations; and • Give licensed professionals oppor- tunities for upgrade training on new issues and equipment in surveying. Having met an important milestone with the SLCC program in place, the UCLS then worked with the Utah legislature to change the law from the prior “experience only” platform to a new platformmandating the minimum education requirement of a two- year surveying degree as part of the Utah professional licensure process. The new licensure law was passed in 2003, taking full effect as of January 1, 2007. But the UCLS did not stop at the man- dated two-year degree! In recognizing the continued need for higher and advanced surveying education in Utah and in order to meet the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) challenge and standard, the UCLS ap- proached Southern Utah University with a proposal to develop a four-year degree program in surveying. After a few months the proposal failed. continued on page 64