ECU students look over a field at the Greenville Utilities wastewater treatment plant.[/caption]
On top of that, taking 1 million or 2 million gallons of capacity could clear the way for industrial development, with the plant having extra capacity to handle wastewater from a potential large employer.
“The longer we can put that expansion off, extend the lifecycle of what we have, fully realize the value of what we’ve already purchased, that will be better for everybody,” Manning said.
Dr. Randall Etheridge, assistant professor in the Department of Engineering, serves as the team’s faculty co-advisor on the project. “This has the potential to be big,” he said.
Etheridge said the project could make a real difference not only in Greenville, but also with the students.
“They get to tackle a real-world problem with all the constraints that you face in the real world like finances, trying to fit things into property boundaries and permitting,” he said. “It’s real-world problems. That’s the best way to describe it.”
Dr. Natasha Bell, assistant professor of engineering who is the other faculty co-advisor on the project, said students see a big benefit from the senior capstone projects.
“What’s special about capstone projects is that the students can connect to local industry and try to help them solve their engineering problems,” Bell said. “It’s a really great activity for the students because they get to experience a snippet of what they may be doing in the future. They’re able to apply and be hands-on with everything and apply what they’ve learned over the last three to four years.”
As part of the project, the students have to look at a variety of factors. As an example, Brett Greenway is focused on the pipe that would be used to pump the treated water to the site of the waterfowl impoundment pond.
“I’ve been handling most of the calculations ensuring that this pipe will suffice and deliver the amount of water we need once we determine how much water we need at the site,” Greenway said. “Given that it’s a 6-inch pipe, it’s a fairly old pipe, and we have to make sure that the water we have to push out there, the pressure doesn’t exceed what the pipe can handle. If it’s not a big enough pipe, we have to size a new pipe and determine what would be a safe range.”
Whitmyer, whose main jobs on the project involve permitting and economic analysis, said that although each student has a different task, they are all working together.
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Jason Manning, center, superintendent of the wastewater treatment plant, gives ECU students a tour.[/caption]
“We’ve taken an approach to make sure everybody knows what’s going on,” she said. “Since there are seven of us, we make sure there are multiple people on different parts of the project. We have a very team-like mindset. Everybody’s willing to help each other out. We’re very blessed to have a group where everybody gets along and it’s very collaborative.”
Manning said the students would also look at the effectiveness of a planned conservation easement involving the planting of 101 acres of trees that are designed to reduce the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus that could flow into the Tar River.
“We’re trying to get a lot out of them,” he said of the students.
Manning said the capstone project is the second in which ECU students have worked on GUC’s wastewater collection system. The first involved an engineering analysis of maintenance on remote pump stations.
“They came up with a scoring matrix to help me better determine where I needed to put more maintenance effort and make more maintenance investment,” Manning said. “There’s no telling how many hundreds of thousands of dollars that saved us.”
He said GUC sees plenty of benefits from working with ECU.
“These students are working on things that I couldn’t afford in my budget to go out and hire a consulting engineering firm,” Manning said. “And what I’ve found is the capstone teams are much more responsive to our needs versus a brick and mortar engineering firm. It gives me a good opportunity to work with Natasha Bell and Randall Etheridge, the academia side, and get their input and their ideas for how we can better manage our plant process and plan for the future, so it’s definitely a win-win for all of us.”
Etheridge said such projects have the potential to benefit more than just the students and GUC.
“I think they’re willing to try new things, and I think the partnership will allow us to work with them to test new things that can be implemented throughout the region to benefit the whole area, not just Greenville,” Etheridge said.
Manning said he hopes to partner with ECU on more projects in the future.
“We really value our relationship and our partnership with East Carolina,” he said. “Hopefully we can continue to grow our relationship through this capstone effort. We already realized a lot of value out of our first project, and hopefully we can continue to find more things in house that need engineering support and have it validated by future capstone teams.”
Along with Whitmyer and Greenway, other students involved in the project include Morgan Ensley, Dawson Reese, Justin Rose, Cody Simonson and Madison Speagle. Their report on the project is expected to be completed in the spring of 2020.
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ECU students are looking at converting part of a field into a waterfowl impoundment pond as part of the project.[/caption] OPEN DIALOGUE
ECU experts discuss marriage rights
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to hear legal arguments on marriage rights later this month, experts from East Carolina University hosted a panel discussion to explore the issue April 15.
Graphics shown by sociology professor Melinda Kane during the panel discussion demonstrate the evolution in state marriage laws over the past 20 years. While same-sex couples have the right to marry in North Carolina, the state legislature is considering legislation that would allow magistrates to opt out of performing marriages if they object to marrying same-sex couples. Click on each image for a larger view. (Graphics courtesy of Pew Research Center)
The public event, titled “Continuing Debates Around Federal, State and Individual Rights: The Case of Marriage in the United States,” drew approximately 150 attendees and featured interdisciplinary faculty discussing the topic within social, legal and cultural contexts.
Associate professor of sociology and event organizer Melinda Kane said she has encountered a lot of confusion and questions about recent changes in marriage laws when talking with students and community groups over the past year.
“The motivation for [organizing] the panel was to provide a venue where faculty could draw upon their expertise to give background information on these debates, and to create a space where audience members could ask questions,” Kane said.
The constitutionality of marriage bans in four states – Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee – is set to be reviewed by the Supreme Court on April 28. The ruling on these cases has the potential to grant marriage rights to same-sex couples throughout the U.S. Currently, same-sex couples can marry in 37 states and Washington, D.C.
Panelists represented varying academic backgrounds, which allowed them to explore different facets of marriage throughout history. Each panelist presented their professional viewpoint for 10 minutes, followed by an open question and answer session from the audience.
Panelist Hugh Lee, representing bioethics and interdisciplinary studies, addressed the legal reasoning for a modern debate of the issue.
“Marriage, both as a civil institution and a legal status, existed well before the founding of our country,” Lee said. “However, the U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence early on did not significantly address [marriage] or what it meant in any meaningful way that would be helpful to the discussion that we’re having today.”
Joining Kane and Lee on the panel were Christine Avenarius, anthropology; Mary Nyangweso, religious studies; Marieke Van Willigen, sociology; Ed Wall, philosophy; and moderator Jonathan Morris, political science.
“This is what we do well as a public university,” said Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Dean William Downs. “We take the pressing issues of the day and tackle them from multidisciplinary perspectives. And we do so in a way that provides analysis, context and understanding.”
Pictured below, an overflow crowd came out to listen as ECU experts discussed marriage rights in advance of upcoming arguments on marriage rights to be presented before the U.S. Supreme Court.