Feature: To The Next Level

A college in Southern California has prospered by employing several disparate measures.  These can inspire others, and they also shed light on the status of surveying education.

By Gregory Sebourn, PLS

Santiago Canyon College (SCC) sits tucked back in the eastern foothills of Orange County, California, a few miles from the "Happiest Place on Earth," also known as Disneyland. The college's land surveying courses attract students from miles away, and considering they're traveling on Southern California's congested freeways, this can mean several hours of driving just to get to campus! To make it worthwhile for them and for our school to stay competitive, several developments have transpired, both from within and with outside partners.

As perhaps the most significant step we've taken, in recent years, the Surveying and Mapping Sciences program began employing instructional assistants to supplement the teaching delivered by our staff of qualified professionals. The instructional assistants are typically current or former students who have earned the nationally accepted National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Land Surveyor In-Training (LSIT) certificate and want to mentor students while learning themselves from our licensed instructors. This has proven a great way for current and former students to get additional experience and advanced education.

Our five instructional assistants have unique life experiences that help to enhance student learning. One assistant has a B.S. in civil engineering and two masters' degrees. Another is a retired United States Marine Corps Major starting his second career in civil engineering and land surveying. Our youngest earned his LSIT at the age of 19! Yet another's resume includes stints as a legal assistant, bellman, videographer, commercial lobster fisherman, and operating engineer (heavy equipment operator). The final instructional assistant spent more than 15 years working at an information technology helpdesk. This diversity our assistants bring to the classroom is important to the students. Who better to show them the ropes than someone who can say he's been there and done that!

Often, students need to hear a lecture a second time in someone else's words to "get it." This opportunity allows the assistants to practice teaching and reinforces knowledge. It has been rightly said that if you want to really know and understand something, try teaching it. Sometimes the assistants can relate to the students better than the instructor can. This creates a more relaxed atmosphere that leads to questions asked on a more casual level, encouraging the students to "talk shop." Outside the classroom, assistants offer tutoring sessions for students twice a week on campus.

Instructors have a very limited amount of time to show all 20 to 50 students how to use equipment and apply technology to a specific lab. This is where the assistants really shine. On any given Saturday, two to five assistants may have prepared the equipment by charging batteries, testing gear to make sure everything works properly, stocking supplies, etc. They then manage equipment distribution to each student-crew and instruct them on the correct use of instruments and equipment in the field. Students respond positively to this assistance and extra instruction. Our staff feels students learn the most from the hands-on portion of the class, and the assistants help facilitate this experience.

Unique Opportunity

In recent months, the assistants and faculty volunteered to set construction stakes for the Coastkeeper Demonstration Garden under construction at SCC. In California, a demonstration garden typically demonstrates efficient use of native vegetation with minimal water resources. Often, they are designed to restore areas damaged by development and where water resources fall short. The Coastkeeper Demonstration Garden was designed to be built over the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's main feeder for the south half of Orange County. This 12-foot diameter pipe cannot have any hardscape above it so it makes sense to have a garden on the site.

The college's biology and arborist classes as well as our surveying and mapping classes will use the garden to conduct field labs. Because it is open to the public, residents in surrounding neighborhoods will also enjoy it. Until I worked on the Coastkeeper Demonstration Garden, I didn't fathom the depth of the problems we face in our community. The project has also opened the eyes of our students while giving them the opportunity to work a real-world surveying project with topographic and construction staking aspects.

This rare opportunity helped show off our team of assistants and their professional abilities to college staff as well as our community partners. Staking the numerous meandering paths, vignettes, and utilities in the garden offered many challenges. Our assistants rose to the occasion and completed the staking on time, potentially saving the college and its partners thousands of dollars during a difficult budget climate.

As SCC's Surveying and Mapping Sciences program continues to grow with more than 200 students enrolled each semester, we think our instructional assistants make a difference between a good education and an excellent one. They don't do it for the money, since they often earn much less than the typical survey technician. They often volunteer to help with on-campus job fairs, tutoring, and high school outreach on their own time and dime. But why? They do it because they know the profession is much more than one person, a single school, or a paycheck. They do it because they want to share their enthusiasm for land surveying and because they enjoy working closely with the faculty that mentors them and the students they mentor.

Shifting to another front, the Orange County Chapter of the California Land Surveyor's Association (OC-CLSA) has also played a role in our development. As evidence, in October 2008, Dr. Eddie Hernandez, chancellor of the Rancho Santiago Community College District (which SCC is a part of) presented OC-CLSA with the coveted Partners in Education award. The award comes after more than three decades of support and cooperation between OC-CLSA and the college district. Over the years, OC-CLSA and its members have given thousands of dollars to our program's deserving students as well as tens of thousands to students at California State University, Fresno and California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. Partnerships made through the CLSA have helped motivate many local companies to make substantial donations of equipment to our program.

SCC's Surveying and Mapping Sciences program takes students through as many as 12 semester-long courses. From Introduction to Plane Surveying to second-year courses like Advanced Problem Solving I and II, students can learn the ABC's of surveying. We offer all our classes in the evening with labs on Saturdays to accommodate our students' busy work schedules. Being a two-year college means we have new and returning students each semester. The "seasoned," or returning, students help guide the new students through the college's academic and administrative system. Students are encouraged to form study groups and join professional organizations. This involvement can make a huge impact in their professional development.

Next February we will offer a course for students and professionals featuring segments on ethics, best business practices, and California State Law. It will also look at the standard of care expected of professional land surveyors by the public. Students will have the opportunity to research, review case law, and learn about the impact of the court's decisions on our profession. The end of the course is timed to coincide with California's Division II (Professional Land Surveyor's) examination.

Saturday Morning Trigonometry

How do you get a teenager up at 7 a.m. to do trigonometry? Simple: offer money and food. For those who don't know, Trig Star is a national competition sponsored by the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) that brings trigonometry students together to compete for money and prestige. Trig Star has been held at SCC since 2006. Every year, college faculty and local professional land surveyors enter high school classrooms to talk about surveying. This gives the students a chance to see the CLSA recruitment video, "Choose Your Path, Make Your Mark." It also gives students a reason to pay attention in class - finally, a practical use for trigonometry! The 2006 national winner came from our pool of local high school students. The event was even featured on a local television channel. The first year we had about 100 students take the exam.

As part of the competition, California Department of Transportation surveyors set up a Survey Challenge where students had to determine angles, distances, and areas on a predetermined course. The course was changed every half-hour or so, and the winners received $50 gift certificates redeemable at local electronics retailers. There were dozens of otherSurvey Challenge prizes for second and third place as well as raffle prizes.

In 2007, we grew to about 150 students, and at the 2008 Trig Star event, we hosted more than 200 students and dozens, if not hundreds, of parents. High school students received a firsthand look at the campus, equipment, and instructors. They met many licensed professionals and often could apply for internships on the spot. Dozens of volunteers from local firms and agencies help college staff direct the students, administer the exam, and grade the results. Students are treated to a light breakfast, a hearty lunch, and the opportunity to win cash and prizes.

No one knows what the future holds, but we try to make sure our surveying students are well prepared for employment. The program has a large technical advisory committee comprised of professionals working for public agencies and private firms. From photogrammetry to GIS, we have brought large and small firms together to help direct and expand the program's technical direction. One measure of success for the SCC Surveying/Mapping Sciences program is in the tremendous growth in enrollment. In spring 2003, 47 students were enrolled in surveying classes. By spring 2008, that number had grown to 220, an increase of 468 percent in just five years! Time will tell how our program will weather the global recession.

In the meantime, our students are coordinating efforts to start a local student chapter of the CLSA as well as a student advisory committee. There has also been discussion of incorporating the NSPS Certified Survey Technician exams into the program. We hope these new additions will help foster our program's success for many generations to come.

Gregory Sebourn, PLS is co-facilitator of the Santiago Canyon College Surveying and Mapping Sciences program as well as an instructor. Licensed in California, he is the senior survey project manager at Johnson-Frank & Associates in Anaheim. He is the incoming 2009 Trig Star committee chair for the Orange County Chapter of the California Land Surveyor's Association and holds an associate in science degree from Santiago Canyon College. He can be contacted at (714) 292-5914 or sebourn_gregory@sccollege.edu.

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