Fostering Current Student Relationships to Promote Graduate Reachback: Collaborative Student and Faculty Development following the 2010 Haiti Earthquake

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, leveled entire sections of Port-au-Prince, destroying a wide range of structures of diverse sizes and compositions (Eberhard et al. 2010) and crippling the water, sewer, transportation, and communications infrastructures (Taft-Morales and Margesson 2010). Hundreds of thousands of Haitians sought temporary shelter in refugee camps, many of which were improvised on any clear ground available. A diverse array of organizations worked to provide emergency aid to those affected by the earthquake. The United States Army reported on January 15, 2010, that approximately 8,000 U.S. military personnel of all branches of service were on location or in transit to Port-au-Prince with an aircraft carrier, medical personnel and equipment, a medical relief ship, and relief supplies (Flaherty and Jelinek 2010). Immediately following the earthquake, the primary focus of international efforts was search and rescue operations and provision of medical attention for those injured in the earthquake (Taft-Morales and Margesson 2010). Approximately six weeks after the event, aid workers shifted focus to the upcoming rainy season and the looming problem of flood control in Port-auPrince’s refugee camps (Gronewold 2010). One of these individuals, Captain Daniel Orr of the U.S. Army, contacted the authors on March 22, 2010. At this time, the rainy season was some three weeks away, half a million Haitians were temporary residents of the sixty displaced-persons camps overseen by the U.S. Army, and approximately one quarter of those camps were susceptible to flooding (Orr, personal communication, Mar. 2010). Captain Orr is a 2006 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he studied civil engineering in an Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc. (ABET)-accredited degree program and took the Fundamentals of Engineering Examination during his senior year. As the only on-scene officer in his unit (a group of 100–300 soldiers and officers) with an engineering background, he was asked to develop and oversee the implementation of a plan to mitigate flooding in the 15 most vulnerable displaced-persons camps. Recognizing that this unusual situation required additional engineering support, he contacted a former professor at West Point to request technical assistance and suggestions for managing the upcoming flooding with extremely limited supplies and equipment. The process of deployed personnel seeking assistance from nondeployed assets is generally termed reachback in military operations. The authors, who are members of the hydrology faculty in the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at West Point, met immediately to develop several possible courses of action. Within 24 h, a preliminary set of recommendations for the most vulnerable camp was in place. Over the following days, work continued at West Point on suggested remediation strategies in the other vulnerable camps. In the weeks following the earthquake, many would-be aid workers were unable to travel to Haiti because air and sea access to Port-au-Prince was overwhelmed. The city’s airport, operated by the U.S. Air Force after the control tower was destroyed in the earthquake, still could not convey the needed inflow of supplies and personnel. In spite of seriously disabled transportation and shipping infrastructures, Captain Orr was able to find the support he needed to manage a challenging and unforeseen assignment. Although his textbooks, manuals, and professors were thousands of miles away, the strong relationships Captain Orr formed with his classmates and faculty while he was a student and maintained after graduation allowed him to complete his mission. This scenario is an example of how universities can support the professional development of their students long after graduation by encouraging open communication between graduates and faculty and focused efforts to build interpersonal rapport.