With their small populations, the Jasper County towns of Sully and Lynnville don’t always have the resources necessary to take on community projects.

“My knowledge only takes us so far,” says Jeff Davidson, the Jasper County community coach for Keep Iowa Beautiful, which strives to bring economic strength to Iowa communities through improvement and enhancement programs. “Eventually, we get to a point where we’ve got to have some help to take a project that’s a priority for us further.”

Fortunately for towns like Lynnville, Sully, and others across the state, that’s the directive of the University of Iowa’s Office of Outreach and Engagement.

“Our mission is to connect the University of Iowa resources with communities and work with those communities to complete projects, events, and other outreach activities to enhance the quality of life across the state,” says Nicholas Benson, director of Community Outreach and Development.

Benson says the Office of Outreach and Engagement has worked with Jasper County for several years on projects in Lynnville, Sully, Baxter, and Newton. A majority of those projects—including two recent ones in Lynnville and Sully—were completed with help from the College of Engineering.

“We take what students have applied in the classroom and move it out into the community so they have real-world experiences,” Benson says.

Paul Hanley, professor of civil and environmental engineering, says the college helps with the projects through the capstone design course all senior engineering students must complete. During spring 2016, engineering students designed a proposed hiking and biking trail that would connect Sully and Lynnville. In fall 2017, students undertook the task of modernizing a park that was built in the 1960s, Hanley says.

At the end of the semester, students present their designs—which also include cost estimates and a breakdown of the construction phases—to city leaders. Officials can then use the students’ projects to create a request for proposal for a professional engineering service or take it to construction. Either way, communities save money on design work done by engineering students who are nearing the end of their education.

“We target communities that don’t have the resources to hire full-time engineering services,” Hanley says, adding that UI students completed 16 design projects for communities during the spring 2018 semester.

Hanley says the students do all of the work and he serves as a mentor. In the case of the hiking and biking trail, students designed a route between the two preferred trailheads, taking into consideration stream crossings and input from the communities about which property owners were most likely to allow easements through their properties. They also designed the trail itself—including width and depth of the material—as well as parking lots and restrooms.

The park modernization offered some unique challenges for the students, Hanley says. Aside from the basic design work, such as adding a parking lot and redesigning a pavilion, city leaders wanted to install a splash pad.

“Just imagine adding that request to senior engineers who have never seen that before,” Hanley says. “They did a lot of research on how to design a splash pad and put together a really nice design.”

Hanley says a highlight of the semester is watching the students present their designs to community leaders and hearing the positive feedback.

“These communities really appreciate the students’ work,” he says.

Davidson says the engineering students work got the communities “into the territory of being beyond what our knowledge was.”

“It’s a blueprint for us moving forward in the smartest way possible,” Davidson says. “It was really essential—I can’t emphasize that enough—we were able to get assistance. They’re not licensed, professional engineers, but I really feel like we got a product that was the equivalent of what we’d get from professional engineers.”

The capstone project is the culmination of three-and-a-half years of coursework and often is the first time students work with the public on a project.

“These are real projects, projects they will see in their professional lives,” Hanley says. “When they come back from job interviews, their employers are just amazed they have that level of responsibility and can follow through on the work.”

Through the Office of Outreach and Engagement projects, the UI builds connections across the state, Benson says.

“If we didn’t already have a strong relationship with Jasper County, we do now,” he says. “Building these relationships allows us to continue to work on projects with the communities in Jasper County. Through the Keep Iowa Beautiful program, these communities are taking hold of their destiny. We’re really happy, as the University of Iowa, to be one of the partners helping with this process.”