Mentored ACE Camp at MTSU Gives Participants ‘Concrete’ Career Ideas

Opportunities are endless for 18 teenagers visiting Middle Tennessee State University as part of the fifth annualACE Mentoring Camp Program.

 

Not only are the 14 boys and four girls from Atlanta, Georgia, Birmingham, Alabama, and Nashville residing in Corlew Hall, eating in McCallie Dining Hall and enjoying the Campus Recreation Center, they are learning about the university’s concrete and construction management,architecture and interior design and engineering programs.

 

ACE — architecture, construction and engineering — and its mentor program is a national, 18-week after-school option for students interested in pursuing a building industry career.  The ACE Camp, which is funded by MTSU and the ACE Mentor Program, is free to attendees.

 

“There are so many opportunities at MTSU,” said Janis Brickey, associate professor in Human Sciences, mentioning the Honors College visit they will make Friday, July 21, where they will hear from Dean John Vile. “Even with an undergraduate degree, you can do more with the Honors College.”

 

School of Concrete and Construction Management Director Heather Brown and the program’s lab director, Kevin Overall, guided the students in making concrete cylinders during the July 17 morning session.

 

Nine professionals oversaw their hands-on progress and collaborating in teams with architecture and design exercises.

 

“This prepares me, whether I want to do this in my career or not,” said Cherish Johnson, 16, of Atlanta, a junior at Arabia Mountain High School in Lithonia, who plans to pursue architecture.

 

Richard Sparkman of Columbia, Tennessee, a rising senior at Columbia Central High School, can thank older sister Nekia Booker for discovering the camp online since he is not involved in an after-school program because he was unable to find one in Columbia.

 

“If there was an ACE (Mentor Program) near me, I’d do it,” Sparkman said. “This is pushing me toward being an engineer. … We get to work with concrete (and other things), have fun, stay in dorms, go on different trips, meet people and open up and talk with them.”

 

Jack Tipton, regional director of the ACE Mentoring Program, said there’s a “big demand and we would love to have them in our industry.” He added diversity is a major factor in the makeup of camp participants.

 

Camp attendees heard from MTSU alumna Elizabeth Kurtz, a 2015 graduate, who assisted with the architect and design portion July 17. She has worked for Inner Design Studio in Brentwood, Tennessee, for two years.

 

Holly Baird of Nashville, regional director with the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council, attended for the fifth year as “a way to support the architect, engineering and design profession and encourage these young students to pursue a path in one of these vocations.”

 

Others guiding the campers through the architecture and interior design phase included Brickey, Alan Hayes, Maggie Wohltjen, Rachel Gresham and Annsley Reynolds with TMPartners PLLC in Brentwood and Sherry Mendel and Cory May with Nashville’s Earl Swensson Associates.

 

Tom Gormley, associate professor of concrete and construction management, helped facilitate many of the on-campus activities.

 

The group visited Roscoe Brown Inc. and toured the new justice center in Murfreesboro Tuesday (July 18).

 

The rest of the week finds them on campus July 19 and July 21, sandwiched around a road trip to Nashville to visit the new Tennessee State Museum construction site, conduct an activity with Vanderbilt University’s engineering department and tour a bridge building and green studio.