The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) national organization has announced that the AGC Student Chapter at UMass Amherst has earned the Outstanding Emerging Student Chapter Award. The judges for the 2021 AGC Outstanding Student Chapter Contest said they were impressed with the obstacles the UMass chapter overcame, as well as the growth documented in its application.
The UMass Student AGC Chapter flourished this year under the leadership of its president, undergraduate Nathaniel Wright of the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department, and its faculty co-advisors, CEE professor Scott A. Civjan and BCT professor Fernando Romero.
This team initiated a full schedule of events for both the Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 semesters, despite being remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter hosted two virtual construction site tours, OSHA-10 Training for 47 student participants, multiple guest lectures, and multiple chapter meetings.
The chapter also developed a club website containing event information, blog posts, resources, and event summaries. Beyond that, the officers overcame the fact that none of them had prior leadership experience with AGC nor received any training.
The UMass Student Chapter will receive a $2,000 cash prize and four complementary registrations to AGC’s Annual Convention, along with a $1,000 travel stipend. Members of the UMass Student Chapter will also give a 10-minute presentation about its service projects during the Annual Student Chapter Meeting, to be held from 1 to 3 p.m. on Tuesday, March 29, at the AGC Annual Convention in Grapevine, Texas.
The AGC will present the actual award to the UMass Student Chapter during the convention’s closing ceremony, from 9:30 to 11 a.m. on Thursday, March 31, 2022.
The UMass AGC Student Chapter is a student-run club involved in the construction industry, both on campus and in the community. As the student chapter summarizes its activities on its Facebook page, “Every year, we offer chapter meetings, construction site tours, guest lectures, OSHA-10 Construction training, volunteering opportunities, and club bonding events.”
The national AGC organization, the so-called “voice of the construction industry,” is an organization of qualified construction contractors and industry related companies dedicated to skill, integrity, and responsibility.
According to the organization, “AGC is dedicated to improving the construction industry daily by educating the industry to employ the finest skills, promoting use of the latest technology, and advocating building the best quality projects for owners – public and private.”