Land Surveying capstone project for Spring 2024 was featured on Spectrum News TV
Nine students in Cincinnati State’s Land Surveying bachelor’s degree program completed their studies with a Spring 2024 capstone project that provides service to the community, and the project gained the attention of Spectrum News.
The student project team spent several months mapping out half of the historic Linden Grove Cemetery and Arboretum in Covington, Kentucky. The cemetery is part of the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, but had never had a formal boundary survey, which establishes the property lines and other historically important information.
Several students were interviewed for a story that aired on Spectrum News 1 Louisville in early May 2024. They described their work, including efforts that eventually will make it possible to create an online database of all of the grave locations.
Click to watch the Spectrum News story
Students in the photo above are (from left) Phuong Bui, Doug Woodruff, Lane Schulz, Noah Horn, Jennifer Townsend, Ryan Gundlach, (name withheld), and Jesse Waggoner. Not pictured are student Casey Boyle and course professors Jim Decker and Dr. Carol Morman.
Jennifer Townsend said in the news story the project was gratifying because it shows “the framework of how the whole city of Covington was laid out.”
Another capstone student, Jesse Waggoner, said it was meaningful to document the historical information, and added, “The hope is that we slowly work our way into being able to identify some of the unmarked graves.”
The Spring 2024 capstone class mapped about half of the cemetery, and the next capstone class will continue the project.
Faculty member Doug Woodruff, the Co-op Coordinator for the Land Surveying program, also was a member of the capstone class.
“I’ve been taking surveying classes out of personal interest in the profession and to be able to speak more intelligently to students and employers I work with,” Doug said. “It also helps me when I meet with new students who are undecided about their educational plans.”
“I wish I had known about this profession when I was an undergrad,” Doug added.
Past Land Surveying capstone classes have assisted the Archeological Research Institute in learning more about an ancient Native American settlement near Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and helped establish property lines and identify grave sites from the 1800s for Big Bone Baptist Church in rural Boone County, Kentucky.