Continuing Education for Engineers
The Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department requires all of its quality assurance personnel and all contractors operating in the state to be trained and certified in the highway standards.
The Center for Training Transportation Professionals (CTTP) in the University of Arkansas College of Engineering provides this training for the state. Since it was established in 1997, CTTP has trained more than 1,500 transportation professionals. Approximately half of these students are employees of AHTD, while others work for the more than 100 contractors licensed to work on roads in Arkansas .
Classes in the AHTD certification program are limited to 20 students to ensure adequate lab time for each student. Each class includes two days of lecture, demonstration and supervised, hands-on laboratory experience. At the end of each class, students must pass a written test and correctly perform the laboratory procedures without the aid of notes.
Frances Griffith, CTTP director, said in addition to the AHTD classes, continuing education is also offered for civil engineers. There are now more than 32 professional development courses being offered through the CTTP.
