 Welcome to another episode of the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast. It's a podcast focused on helping geotechnical engineers stay up-to-date with technical trends in the field. I'm your host, Jared Green, and I've practiced as a geotechnical engineer for over 17 and a half years. And in addition to practicing engineering, I enjoy mentoring young engineers and first-generation college students. I've focused on helping to increase the number of pre-college students that are interested in STEAM majors in fields. STEAM meaning science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics. In this episode of the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast, which I may sometimes refer to as the Geopod, I'll be talking with none other than Dr. Sam Clements, a professor at Syracuse University, about his role as a professor at the university and the things that he does to help geotechnical engineers and students succeed. Before we jump in, let me remind you that you can find everything you need at the following website, geotechnicalengineeringpodcast.com. There you will find links to the past shows and links to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. And there's also a form where you can submit topics and guest ideas. Again, that's geotechnicalengineeringpodcast.com. And please, if you've enjoyed the show, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast. As doing so will help more geotechnical engineers find the show. Now, let's jump into our conversation with Professor Sam Clements. All right, welcome to another episode of the Geotechnical Engineering Podcast. We have our guest today, Professor Sam Clements. Welcome to the Geotechnical Podcast. We are honored to have you, Professor. Jared, thank you. Thank you so much for including me in this wonderful program. I really, really appreciate it. Oh man, this is kind of like a moment of personal pride because you are my first soil mechanics professor at Syracuse over 20 years ago. You believe that? Wow. Actually, I remember. I was going to include a little bit about that. Oh, I get this. No, I remember teaching you foundation engineering and design. And at the beginning of the semester, you were okay, but you didn't seem to be tuned in. And then one day we talked after class, and you had this little gleam in your eye, and I thought, oh, we've got him. He's going to be a great geotechnical engineer. And sure enough, that happened. I'm so proud. We're all so proud of your accomplishments. Thank you so much. That means a lot. That means a lot. Yeah, at first, I didn't know what was going on. So as a particulate matter, I was like, what is going on? That's right. That's true. It's very different from structures and a lot of the other civil specialties. You're right. Exactly, exactly. Wow. Well, we gave an introduction, went over your bio earlier in the show, but like if we had to say it in your own words, what would you tell the listeners? Your daily life is like at Syracuse University. And you've been here since late 70s. So your daily life probably changed over the years, but yes it has. I've been here, let's see, wow, 43 winters. We counted as winters. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia originally, but 43 years. I retired in 1914 and I still continue to... 1914? I'm sorry, 24. Okay, just checking. Cut that out, would you? But that's a blooper. But I've still continued to be active in the department and I assist with the senior design course, which is a wonderful, wonderful experience. We really have one of the oldest senior design courses in the country. Almost 60 years ago we started it. It was called planning engineering in those days, but it's really a wonderful capstone design course and I think it's something that I love to teach because it gives students that are not necessarily great analytical performers, but are good designers a chance for them to excel. And it's always wonderful to see students that you know maybe not the smartest kids in the class, but the ones that know how to design and get excited with teamwork and work well together and come up with a good project. So I do that, I'll review papers for several professional societies, help in the department anyway I can. So it's good. That's great, that's great. And I remember the capstone design that was a lot of fun, you know working with somebody to focus in the civil, somebody to focus in environmental, focus in the structure and the reality is that that capstone was a preview of what you know the daily life would look like as a consultant because we work with different consultants all the time, different disciplines. Thank you, that's what we hope to do to simulate. And then the wonderful thing is at the end we have a presentation where we have engineers come, prominent like Jared Green come and visit and listen to the seniors present their their projects and you ask wonderful questions. You prepare them for that real life experience and so I'd love to do it. I hope I can maybe be hobbling in there for the next couple of years to continue to do it. Sounds awesome. I also saw a video that Syracuse posted, I believe it was from last year where it showed I think there were freshmen or sophomore students that had prepared bridge designs and they had to step on them and one of the things I thought was so powerful is that you would step on the bridge with the designer. Sometimes you'd stay and other times you guys would you know come down to 18 inches. That's pretty awesome. Yeah that's a lot of felt was a freshman course and we would give them a limited amount of material and they had to support 300 pounds and it was fun. I think it really sort of brought home not just the theoretical part but practical application. You got to build something that's going to stand up and take the load so they get a visual visual idea if it doesn't perform well. Yeah and everybody's watching too which makes sense. Yeah that's right yeah we do that at the end of the semester yeah. That's great. Oh professor I know that you served as a naval officer in the U.S. Navy Civil Engineering Corps and I want to thank you for your service. Thank you. I would just say how did that you know experience benefit your career. Yeah that was a wonderful adventure number one and number two it really turned me into a man. I really recommend it for anybody that gets out graduates and doesn't know what to do. Boy it just what they do is they take you they train you and they put you in big big physicians of responsibility and I mean it was amazing. I was in the in the CBs they call it construction battalion a naval construction battalion of about 1200 men and after I had finished and gotten my commission we went through training and then we went to Guam there'd been a typhoon that had gone through there so we went to repair a lot of the works there. Interesting geotechnical project there was a warehouse right along the wharf in Guam and we had to drive steel piles down because the hurricane or the typhoons that call them out there the wind pressure and uplift and so we were driving them into crystallized coral and it was really interesting stuff you'd you'd get a real high blow count and then bam it suddenly would break through the coral and drop a few feet. Wow. We had to drive them pretty deep and get them into where there was enough skin friction for us to be able to ensure that we had the uplift capacity for these typhoon type winds. And after actually the great Alaska earthquake occurred while we were out there and we thought a tsunami would hit us but it missed Guam and but hit Hawaii and while we were there we got called up to go into Vietnam it was at that time when that became very very active and so I went in with an advanced party and we did that was combat engineering very different from regular engineering you know you're you've got people shooting at you you've got to be careful what you're doing you would always be ready to grab your weapon and protect yourself and wow yeah that was that was it was exciting and then probably I'm going on about this but I this is not fine uh probably the best adventure I had was um I had a CB team they called it uh took 12 enlisted men and an officer and I was a young guy it was an ensign I guess when I went and they sent us up in the northeast Thailand uh to build a dam a road and a bridge the communists were coming across the Mekong River and they had this aid USAID program where we wanted to show that you know we were supporting the people so we convoy up there with bulldozers and drapers and all this equipment and we had about 30 or 40 young time in to help us and we built this road and um we had it was actually the material was interesting it's laterite I don't know if you've heard that term maybe it's a residual soil it's kind of like low-grade iron ore it's red and I remember even when I was in a masters at Georgia Tech George Sowers who was a wonderful professor had talked about laterite so uh scoop I got a big box of it and mailed it back to Georgia Tech I don't know if he appreciated it or not but we had to compact the road and we didn't have a water truck so we took a big old connex box it's a big steel box turned it on its side and put it on a three-quarter ton truck and cut a hole in the box and put a pipe on there and a water spreader and you know got the optimum moisture content for this stuff so it was you know it was really you had to really do sort of innovative things to to complete the project we had to hire some elephants to make some timber out of the jungle build a bridge and so it was a great adventure I love doing it and we built a dam and uh we had a concrete spillway and it was so hot we had to pour concrete at night you know because it would get a flash set and when the dam was about completed we the rainy season was going to start and we were worried about erosion on the dam so I talked to the mayor of the city where we were they were called a nyan poor and I said look let's make a deal if you'll ask every family around here to bring about one square meter of sod we'll provide water you'll provide some food we'll have a big picnic and we'll sod the top of the dam to protect it from erosion and we did you know about a hundred families showed up it was cool that is awesome yeah I've got these pictures with these people out there putting grass and and the dam you know it survived the first year I never did go back but uh so that was it was a wonderful wonderful experience I loved every minute of it that is so cool you talk about having to you know gather the given information dealing with constraints you know dealing with material challenges equipment challenges and then involving the community that's a powerful experience yeah yeah it was really great yeah so I loved it wow well professor when I look at your uh accomplishments and awards you've won a lot you won a lot of awards and a lot of them tie back to excellence in teaching I just I just picked one from the bio it said that uh one of the awards was in 1998 you got the Outstanding Educator Award from the St. Lawrence section of the American Society of Civil Engineers now I would imagine an award like that comes from somebody that is passionate in what they do now I had you as a as a student so um as a student I had you as a professor so I know that you're passionate about what you do but tell us more about why you wanted to be a professor what what that's meant to you yeah thank you Gerard yeah actually that award I didn't know anything about that the dean nominated me for that the dean of our college and I was shocked I was really grateful that he did that yeah but uh it was wonderful yeah I I um I really came into teaching rather late because uh I had co-op through Georgia Tech I spent six or seven years in the navy and took me a long time to get a PhD and I really wasn't sure that I wanted to do it but once I started teaching I loved it and I tried to make it practical I tried to bring in practical examples I think that's the value of going out into practice first and then teaching you know you if you have some experience I think the students appreciate that so I love to do that I'm kind of a visual learner so I tried to I've taken a lot of pictures as I've gone along so I tried to reinforce concepts with visual ideas uh and I just loved it I love student I love having students like you somebody that you know you started you didn't know if you wanted to be in geotech but when you found that you liked it it was just thrilling to me to see you know you you take it and have all the wonderful accomplishments that you've done since then that just makes my heart full to think about students like that so you know it's a something that I love to do I have to tell you about the visual part um often I would talk about a concept I don't know compaction or permeability then I try to show some slides you know that I had some examples so I had a 830 class uh typically and one day I go to class and almost everybody's there right on time there's a lot of people there earlier than me and that's kind of suspicious you know but so I've lectured on and about the last 15 minutes of the class I'm going to show them slides so I uh I shut down everything and I said okay we're going to show some slides and I pulled the screen down and they had taped a center fold of a playboy bunny on the screen and it said hi sam I love your southern accent when I pulled down the screen to show the slides so I was so flabbergasted I could I I just had to dismiss class but they knew I was going to show some slides so they knew that I love to use visual learning so it was fun yeah that's uh I think if you if it's a profession that you love just like you love your profession and you can just feel it when you talk with people and work in it so that's great yeah that's wonderful and when you think about you think about your experiences think about the good time but what are some of the challenges that you had to overcome right right right um in the beginning teaching is um you don't get you do have to make some sacrifices you're probably not as well uh paid for it you know often you don't get much recognition at the beginning is all this pressure to do research uh and you get hit from all different sides for for research for committee work and it and it's it's funny that I don't think um you know how I wish we had mentors we I think I was department chair for a while we tried to do more of that but I think faculty need mentors as well as they do in the practice I'm sure you had mentors when you got it definitely yeah yes companies yeah and uh I think that uh that was a part you weren't sure what you were supposed to spend your energy and if you do too much in teaching and neglect your research then you know you're in in jeopardy of not getting tenure if you do too much research then you kind of become you're not as excited about classwork so it's a balance and it's something that you have to feel your way along especially in those times in the uh in the 60s you people there weren't people there to guide you along so I think I hope that's gotten better today yeah mentorship is is is so key I think that whether you're in an academic sense or if you're in the professional sense if you're in the contracts if you don't have a mentor you almost have to you know have find yourself and it's really hard you know you know you're the beginning of the forest and it's like you got to make that path it's very exact yeah yeah exactly wow and and as a professor I mean what are some of the ways you think we're instrumental and continuing to learn to stay on top of things as far as yeah what well again I think the professional societies do a great job at that ASCE I was a committee chair for the shallow foundations committee the deep foundations institute get involved with those institutes you can go to seminars you can learn things I learned so much from some of the short courses there just going to meetings and meeting with colleagues talking to other faculty and what they're doing one of the other things I did if anybody ever goes into education I got we had an accreditation review you know every six years and we had this guy that I was a department chair and he was such a nitpicker oh man he made me so mad with the things that you know the little things he found wrong with the with our program so I called up and complained and and the guy says well why don't you become a evaluator if you want to change the system become one of them so I actually did start going to accreditation visits and it was eye-opening I went to all different types schools from small ones up to I went to Stanford I went to you know and you really gain a wonderful sense of what others do in their educational programs and that was a really great help to see how other other people did approach their education a lot of good ideas came out yeah that's awesome and that's so important I mean if you you know lose your a better accreditation I mean that's that's kind of it that's right so it's very important yeah it's a very serious program it's wow when you think back on your career I mean what are you what do you think were some of the big surprises when you think about the time as an educator um I don't I'm that's hard to say I don't know I guess I'm surprised at how much today the computing computing applications have taken over how much that's used today and it's wonderful and I agree with it but I always uh in in classes and graduate courses always one of the students for instance if they do a slow stability analysis and they use a computer program I want a little hand check on you know just we call it a gut check I was a consultant for O'Brien and Geer for the geotechnical group and they'd always say okay we need a gut check on this question here so I was surprised at how much I mean we rely on it and it's great and finite elements are wonderful and but I feel like uh I was surprised I think we still need to be more maybe that sounds old-fashioned but I think it's we need to have a gut check when we do this type of word well I I agree I mean you can have all these colorful you know plots but yeah you know how to explain what the soil should be doing you can't check to see if it's right yeah even if you have you know 12 significant digits for how much settlement it's going to occur it's like can you solve it on the back of an envelope is what we used to say right that's right that's so true yeah and I think that stands people can stick good stead it's sort of good innate engineering sense you know sort of what's the scale of things I used to have my graduate students read a paper by Ralph Peck about scale you know looking at a site somebody says oh there's 320,000 kip loads well wait a minute let's you sure that's right I'm yeah just just have practical understanding of scale and quantity and what's right like you said with settlement you bring it out to all those all those significant figures and it's really not very valid scale is so key I can remember as a as a young engineer you show up at a site client says it's going to be a you know a seven acre site you come there and he said what do you think it's pretty big he said yeah it looks like a seven acre site I mean that's what you said right exactly you you know if you don't understand scale it's like yeah how do you tie it back exactly exactly now another another thing I always think it's great about your experience is that you tried to retire a few times you tell our listeners about that because I think as a geotechnical engineer and a geotechnical engineering professor your retirement is pretty spectacular when you think about where what happened but you're very sweet Jared yeah let's see 2014 I retired I had a great party I gave a lecture on the history of engineering but some of my students came back from all over the world it was fun so the chancellor called me uh the next fall and he said you know our the dean of Hendricks Chapel who is the religious leader on campus Syracuse University was founded as a Methodist Church by the Methodist Church a long time ago in the 1870s and we built this beautiful chapel right on the quad as you remember yes in the surveying course you had to estimate the height of the chapel using a triangulation but anyway he said um how would you like feel about being the interim dean of Hendricks Chapel at the chancellor you know I'm a Christian I've got a little Christian group I advise but holy moly he says you can do it you can do it only for a few months till we found a replacement well it turned out being two and a half years I served as a dean of Hendricks Chapel it was wonderful because I got to see a whole other aspect of the university community there's a lot of support out there for students you know that are having problems we have a food pantry we developed a lot of programs to help people so it was a 180 degree turn from engineering but but actually I think I think some of and we had we had let's see 10 chaplains we had a tremendous we had a catholic um I don't can't rehearse all of them but you know 10 different faith groups and here's an engineer talking to them but I try to be logical I think but we finally found a wonderful replacement and then about six months later he says calls me up again he says Sam he says we're starting an ombudsman program on campus to have a university ombudsman how would you like to be the first the interim university ombudsman only take a couple of months he tells me the same story about finding so I took that on and I served in that for about a year and a half and that was interesting too as an ombudsman you know it's an old swedish term that the king people were unhappy with the king of sweden so he appointed an ombudsman a person that you could come to with complaints anywhere there was no retribution and so I would hear it's amazing you know people would come with with complaints I couldn't do a lot about them but I could kind of head them in the right direction and try to and I had to report to him every month about what he what no names or anything you know all all what do you call it um says you know no no but what the temperature of the campus was where were people unhappy what could he do to help thing so it was quite an interesting position and but I'm glad to be back now in a good old senior design and helping with that course but that was fun yeah it was really interesting that is cool you talk about you know expanding the scope of practice that's yeah right fantastic it's just you know sometimes when you raise your hand and say yes I could do it you have to figure out how to do it thanks right you've done that I know you've done it yes sir but it is but it's it takes a little courage but it's really rewarding I think isn't it you it opens up your mind to you've done that I know in so many different areas yeah so it's it's fine it really was yeah that was great and we think about you know diversity within what it means to be a geotechnical engineer I know there was a time you taught a class about Leonardo da Vinci and I think that's just awesome actually I have a little shirt that you know gives a tribute to that yeah the divine geometry tying that back to pizza right I wish you'd been around for it um I had a good we had a Mellon Foundation project where we we tried to integrate the arts and sciences with the professional schools that seemed like there were separate entities you know engineering's over here law is here new of public communications how do we integrate those with arts and sciences how do we get you know to get to know faculty and so actually we had programs and I got to know a Renaissance art professor and I'd always been interested in the history of engineering I tried to bring it into the class and so he asked me to lecture on Roman engineering he was teaching an introductory art course or history art history and he was talking about the Romans so I did that and then we did a little bit about Leonardo da Vinci so one day we're walking across the quad and he says you know I teach a course on Michelangelo it's an art course and I what I do is I teach the kids about Michelangelo and then at spring break we go to Italy and we see his works he says but you know it's kind of boring as the art students are okay but I'd like to mix it up I said he said let's do someone Leonardo da Vinci I said okay we'll call it Leonardo da Vinci artist and engineer nice and so we made a proposal to the dean of engineering and arts and sciences and they each gave us several thousand dollars to support the kids at spring break so so here's the plan so we would teach the course together he was a wonderful teacher he was a lot better than me I had to really scramble I mean oh he he was one of these eloquent professors that speaks in paragraphs you know he talked about Leonardo's concept of the Mona Lisa and all this so I had to really scramble to keep up with him but so what we would do then and we would stay in the class it wasn't that he would teach one day and I wouldn't teach them you know I stayed with him he stayed with me he asked questions I asked questions and the students often said they loved it when we get an argument about something that they could see but then so what we would do at spring break is we would limit the class to about 25 students half engineering half arts and sciences we'd gather them all up and fly to Florence and spend a couple of days there and then we go up to Vinci where Leonardo was an illegitimate son of a notary so his name means Leonard of Vinci you know he didn't have a last name it was Leonardo of Vinci because he was born in Vinci beautiful little mountain town excuse me right outside of Florence so we'd go see where he was born and then in Florence we'd go visit his workshops a lot of his paintings are there at the the main art institute in in Florence what's that called anyway we we visit there and then we fly we take a train up to Milano because the last supper is there and that's a magnificent painting it's been damaged and they only allow 10 or let's see 20 people in as a group for only 15 minutes at a time it's all humidity and temperature control so we would go into the we visit that and then Leonardo at the end of his life the king of France Francis the first brought him to Amboise in France and had a house for him and so Leonardo died there so with the last two days we go to Paris we go to the Louvre because most of his paintings are there the Mona Lisa's there and then we go down where he would he died so we started in Vinci where he was born and ended up in Amboise where he died wonderful program the kids loved it we enjoyed it and we did it for about 10 years and it was exhausting though to take for about 10 days spring break yeah you're not a old man I mean he anticipated I mean he understood geology he says how do you have these fossils up in the mountains how did they get there you know amazing polymath you know your shirt is mathematics yeah his geometry is amazing is we we actually have a copy of his some of his notebooks at Syracuse University we had to have to handle them with gloves on you know we take students and let them see their replications of his drawings and wow they're just phenomenal wonderful wonderful experience yeah that is awesome those students are never going to forget that you know yeah right yeah yeah I think so yeah yeah that was wonderful so I guess you know our listeners are you know geotechnical engineers from you know folks that are in school and trying to figure out if they want to go on a geotechnical all the way up through practicing PEs and PhDs what advice would you give them for staying technically sharp like what are the things that geotechnical engineers should be doing consistently so they can stay sharp over the years right well I mentioned these are I know you all know about these there's they're very very good number one I tell this to my students to join ASCE join the profession you're part of it you need to support it you need to be active in it uh one time I used to teach it well the freshman uh and the seniors we'd have a part of the course was on ethics or you know proper professional conduct and uh I would always say we'd have some examples and I'd say make sure that you um join the ASC because they can help you with these problems and so about oh I don't know 10 years ago I have a student call me up and he says he says I graduated uh in civil engineering and he says I went into the rock business he was a what do you call those people that helped set up rock shows uh I don't know what's the name for him anyway but he's a grunt you know and he says I'm I'm down in New York City and we're setting up this rock concert in this warehouse and older part of New York City and some of these they're they were steel beams up there steel steel beams and someone were really corroded okay and he says I'm worried he says I went we're hanging heavy speakers from these so it's an engineering problem but he's a grunt you know so we go to his boss and he says you know I'm worried about these steel beams up here they're those joists you know welded barge or okay and uh and the guy said don't you tell me about that we put in a concert and I wouldn't lose any money you know he blows them off and he says well I need to tell the owner and he says you do you're fired so he's caught you know between no the finest or not so he calls me up I don't want to now you're involved I know it yeah I said uh I've forgotten his name he said I said contact ASCE the headquarters right there you get a hold of their legal department and they'll help you out and sure enough they they guided him through he wrote a letter they wrote a letter and presented it to his boss and to the owner to sort of protect himself yeah but I don't I'm sorry I got off onto that but anyway no it's fine the the profession I think is uh just invaluable um and go to those meetings get to know uh your fellow colleagues I love Geo Strata of the magazine there you go you know I was gonna say the we were talking about new research there's a one of the things I always think is so important one of my graduate course I spent almost a half a semester on field test interpretation of the results you know before you even do any design what have you got out there in the field what's the geology what it's like and they've got this new thing where you can do visual you can do virtual reality and look at the profile of the soil so really wonderful I would encourage everybody to I love the DFI that's a wonderful organization well as ASCE both of them provide great support for young engineers so do it have fun meet those people and talk dirt you know talk soils I agree it's been uh many years now that I've been you know working as a geotechnical professional and I guess say that some of my best memories are being a part of these organizations yeah especially the two that you mentioned yeah all right people yeah well thank you so much we're gonna take a quick break here and then we're going to close out our talk with Professor Sam Clemens when we talk about the career factor of safety stick around welcome back everyone it's time for our career factor of safety in segment in geotechnical engineering just like many disciplines of engineering it's important to incorporate a factor of safety into your design but what about incorporating a factor of safety into your career today of course we're speaking with none other than Dr. Sam Clemens and we're going to ask him just that Professor we spoke about you know all that you've accomplished in your career what advice would you give to those geotechs that are listening that are planning to transition into the academic realm they might be you know a master's student getting ready to get a PhD and then become a professor or they might be working as a professional and say you don't want to go back and teach how can they build security in their careers to give them a factor of safety when planning such a transition thank you Jerry that's a great question and i'm so glad that you're posing that because we need good teachers we need people committed and passionate about teaching so it's really important thing to do i think the first thing is you have to realize that you may be poor for the transition may not be so easy so be willing to have a little sacrifice there i would say for for young students masters phd students if at all possible get out there and get some practical experience six months a year whatever you can fit in uh to sort of underpin when you go into teaching it'll it'll serve you in so many ways for many many years for those people in the in the mid mid-level or later that want to think about going into teaching first thing i would do is volunteer at your local university or somewhere to be an adjunct professor they won't pay you very much i can guarantee you that but you'll get a feel for what it's like to teach now it's not exactly the way it'll be because if you do it full time it's completely different from just dropping in and doing it you know once a week or whatever but if you if you can find an adjunct position or if you can offer some seminars at asce or dfi try that and see if you enjoy doing it if you like it then it would take the step and you really do need you what we call your phd card your union card your phd so that uh it kind of ensures you helps you along the tenure track and all that uh and the first few years it's a struggle it may be a struggle financially but if you make some contacts with local consulting firms you've got all this wonderful experience if you're an older more mature person or if you're a young person coming out you've got some great research ideas look up with those in consulting firms and see if you can't serve them help them and use that during your time that you complete your education and start teaching so please do it we need people out there to get involved all right thank you so much professor thank you for coming on and thank you for sharing such great insights for our listeners uh we have a lot of information here and i'm sure our you know the listeners are going to want to hear more what is the best way for them to find you you're in social media or email you can share uh linked in yeah but i'm on my email is spclement spclemm at syr.edu love to hear from anybody love to hear from people all right thank you so much thank you jared i hope you enjoyed the episode today we would love to hear your feedback comments or questions please feel free to go to our website that being geotechnicalengineeringpodcast.com where you'll find a summary of the key points discussed in today's episode that being episode three as well as links to any resources websites and books mentioned during this episode until next time we wish you the very best in all your geotechnical engineering endeavors peace