Thomas K. Jewell

POSITION
Carl B. Jansen Professor and Chair of Civil Engineering
Department of Civil Engineering
Union College
Schenectady, NY 12308
Phone: (518) 388-6263
FAX: (518)388-6778
E-mail: Jewellt@union.edu

PROFESSIONAL AREAS OF INTEREST

Hydraulics, Water Resources, Computer Applications, Technical Communications, Systems Analysis

AUTHOR OF TWO TEXTS

A Systems Approach to Civil Engineering Planning and Design, Harper and Row, 1986, and Computer Applications for Engineers, John Wiley & Sons, 1991.

REGISTERED PROFESSIONAL ENGINEER IN

New York State

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND
B.S. 1968 United States Military Academy, West Point
M.S. 1975 University of Massachusetts/Amherst (Environmental Engineering)
Ph.D.1980 University of Massachusetts/Amherst (Civil Engineering)

With the gradual phase-out of civil engineering, I am shifting my focus to international programs. I have led mini-terms to Australia, New Zealand, and Spain. I am now working on developing new engineering exchange opportunities for our students with universities in Norway, France, Germany, Spain, and Mexico. Some of these opportunities will require language proficiency, so I am encouraging the freshmen engineers to take the necessary language prerequisites. We are proud of the fact that about 80% of our engineering graduates actually participate in some type of international program; including terms abroad, exchanges, mini-terms, IVDS, or international internships. The other 20% meet the General Education Section IV requirements by taking foreign languages or three courses in one of the cultural diversity tracks. Our goals are to increase the percentage actually going abroad to as close to 100% as we can get, with as many as possible being full term or semester programs, and to increase the percentage of engineers taking modern languages to further enhance their competitiveness in the global engineering market place.

OUTSIDE INTERESTS

Skiing, Boating, Gardening, and Home Maintenance

I have had several boats, and have taught courses for the United States Power Squadron. My last boat was a 1979 36' Trojan Tri-cabin, which I bought in 1994. Between 1994 and 1999 I took some interesting and fun cruises with it: including the circle route through Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, the Richleau River and Chambly Canals, Lake Champlain, Champlain Canal, and then the Barge Canal back to Schenectady ; a trip to Boston via the Hudson River, out Long Island Sound, through the Cape Cod Canal, and up the coast to Boston; and numerous variations and subsets of these trips. Several cruises included Union colleagues Phil Snow, George Williams, and Paul Gremillion.

The summers since 1999 have been extremely busy with international programs, working on our house and property in Charlton, trips to see family in Florida, and vacations on Cape Cod and Alexandria Bay About the only boat trips were to Lake Champlain and down the Hudson as far as West Point. My wife Gretchen and I also bought property on Seneca Lake, so we have been busy cleaning it up, designing our first ever new home, and installing a dock. We hope to build and retire there in a few years. Therefore, with some regrets, but with promises of better things to come, we finally sold the 36 footer in the summer of 2003. We plan to buy a smaller boat to use on the lake either next year or the year after.