Erin McConville ’21: Social Consciousness Learning Competency

As a student, I have served the campus community, the Portland community, and even communities abroad. As a member of Global Engineering Initiative, a student-led club on campus, I volunteered on service projects in both Ghana and Nicaragua. I also helped build a rainwater collection system for the Student-Led Unity Garden, volunteered with Habitat for Humanity during my freshman year, and volunteered with the Forest Park Conservancy during my junior and senior years. In addition to this, I have participated with multiple service organizations in the Portland area including: Hacienda Community Development Corp., the Blanchet House, and Friends of Trees.

Even in seventy-degree weather, I was covered in sweat. With a group of engineering students from the University of Portland, I had been digging trenches for the past five hours. We were working on a project that would provide clean water to over one hundred homes in rural Nicaragua. Though I was already exhausted, I kept pickaxing, since I knew that my time in Nicaragua was limited, and I wanted to contribute as much as possible to the residents I was serving. It was encouraging to see how excited and grateful the community members were to have us helping them. They were so excited to have a water system in their community to bring water directly into families’ homes. Previously, water had to be carried from the stream at the lowest part of the valley up into homes to be used.

As a part of our experience, we were able to meet Josue Moreira, the project engineer in charge of the water system. He explained to us how they first planned out the project using GPS, then designed the project with that data to be the most efficient and cost-effective. Josue was a civil engineer who graduated from the National University of Engineering in Nicaragua and was using his skills to help the communities surrounding his hometown, Jinotega. After hearing about Josue’s story, I saw how meaningful Josue’s job was, and it inspired me to pursue a job where I could use my skills in service to others.

A year later, I found myself in a similar position, but halfway across the world in the Ekumpoano region of Ghana. This time, I was digging holes and mixing concrete to build an underground biodigester, a system that functions like a self-maintaining septic system. The town in which we were working was home to over 300 people who shared a 10-person community toilet facility. This facility, however, was difficult for elderly members to access, required a fee to use, and would frequently have wait times in the early mornings For these reasons, open defecation was a common practice and illnesses associated with open defecation were a common problem. With a team of 14 other students from the University of Portland, we constructed 3 biodigesters in 3 different parts of the town to operate at no cost to residents. The most important part of the biodigesters was that they did not need to be cleaned out like a septic system. The bacteria in the waste would break down the solids in the waste and different layers of material would filter liquid waste so that it would not pollute nearby water systems. Like my previous experience, we helped with the construction of the project.

The primary reason I chose to study civil engineering was because all civil engineering projects provide critical infrastructure. I knew that regardless of my discipline, I would be working to make people’s lives safer and more secure.

Through my past two local engineering internships, I have been able to work on projects involving Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) improvements that have improved accessibility in the local community. In my first internship, I was inventorying ADA curb ramps in the City of Forest Grove’s Right-of-Way and helping with the inspections for new curb ramps that were being installed. These tasks were a bit tedious and compared to some of my friends’ internships, it seemed a little boring. However, after the new ramps were installed, a local community group, who transition adults with disabilities from high school into adult life, came in and gave the city’s engineering office a signed thank you card.  Many of the group members used wheelchairs and could not drive, so they relied on Forest Grove’s sidewalks and curb ramps to get around. With the improved ramps, adults with disabilities now can travel more easily and can access places that previously presented barriers to them. This project wasn’t as big as either of my projects in Ghana or Nicaragua, but it was the first time I was able to use my engineering skills to improve the lives of others.

I hope to continue working to better my community by providing safe methods of transportation. It is critical that transportation infrastructure is improved as many of the US roadways are in poor condition, congested, and even dangerous. According to ASCE’s 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, US roadways scored a D on an A-F scale. There are many reason for this. The report found that “traffic delays cost the country over $160 billion in wasted time and fuel, one out of every five miles of highway pavement is in poor condition, and over 35,000 people die every year on America’s roads (“Roads”.) There are multiple issues facing America’s transportation infrastructure and I know that I can working on solving those problems as a transportation engineer. Whether I am working on small projects or large ones, I know my work will address the Grand Challenges vision of making the world a more sustainable, secure, healthy, and joyful place.

Works Cited:

“Roads.” ASCE's 2017 Infrastructure Report Card, American Society of Civil Engineers, www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/roads/.