Two students from one department in the College of Engineering will be lucky enough to see their tuition bills go down by $1,000 next year, if they win a new scholarship in the civil and environmental engineering department.

Thanks to the Associated General Contractors of Greater Milwaukee, the department of civil and environmental engineering will receive an extra $5,000 a year in resources. Each year, two students will be chosen from the greater Milwaukee area to receive one-time $1,000 scholarships. The other $3,000 per year will be placed in an endowment fund, in hopes of funding the awards in perpetuity, according to a press release by Marquette.

The Education and Research Foundation gave the AGC-GM scholarship with the goal of helping juniors and seniors in the College of Engineering. The annual donations will be given until the endowment fund reaches $50,000, at which point the award will be self-perpetuating, according to www.agc-gm.org.

Dr. Michael Switzenbaum, professor and chair of the department of civil and environmental engineering said he was grateful for the generosity the AGC-GM has shown Marquette with this scholarship.

"While some people think of civil engineers as building bridges, roads and buildings as well as safeguarding our environment, what we really do is train future engineers to improve the quality of life for others," Switzenbaum said. "It's all about service to others or, as the Jesuits call it, cura personalis. These generous scholarships help us to realize our goal and we are most grateful for the support of the AGC-GM."

Switzenbaum saw several other reasons the AGC-GM decided to give the scholarship to Marquette.

"I think a big thing is that we put out well rounded students," Switzenbaum said. "We have a solid core curriculum, and we also have a great place for ethics here. Now more than ever, engineers need ethics skills."

Switzenbaum said that he sees the benefits of a multifaceted education for engineering students.

"In today's world engineers need to be more than technically sound," he said. "They need to be able to communicate well. We offer students a solid number of courses to teach them how to communicate."

"I think they were impressed with what they saw here," Switzenbaum said. "Most of them are Marquette alums too, and they want to give back to their school."

Professor Saeed Karshenas sees some practical reasons as to why Marquette was given the scholarship.

"We offer a lot of construction programs the AGC-GM wants to promote," Karshenas said. "We also have quality students in our department."

Associate Professor Charles Melching agreed with his colleague's assessment of their students.

"Our students get practical experience from being in our department, and so they are very attractive to the AGC-GM," Melching said. "Our undergraduate students are pretty much a pipeline for the AGC-GM, so I'm sure that played a role in us getting the scholarship as well."

This is not the first scholarship given to Marquette by the AGC-GM. In April of 1999 the AGC-GM created the Robert Caspari scholarship. Caspari was a student in the College of Engineering at Marquette who went on to become chairman emeritus of Dahlman Construction before he died of cancer in 1998.

The AGC-GM was committed to donating $20,000 to the Caspari scholarship at a rate of $5,000 annually. The scholarship provides students from Marquette $1,000 to pursue disciplines in engineering. After the Caspari scholarship was paid out last year, the AGC-GM wanted to set up another scholarship for engineering students, according to Switzenbaum.

What do they need to do to win?