A partnership between the University of Iowa and Lyon County began this weekend, Saturday, Aug. 29, as students from the school came to work on various engineering projects throughout the county. This partnership comes from the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities and will be worked on throughout the 2026-2027 school year.
(Left to right) Jen Smit, Lyon County Economic Development director; Jessica Cuque, Brigid O’Hara and Mike Niebergall, students of the University of Iowa, and Michael Leuthold, wastewater project engineer. The group of students worked this weekend with Leuthold in planning a possible senior housing development in Lester as part of a partnership between Lyon County and the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities. (Photo/Tristan Taylor)
Ashley Laux, assistant director of the Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities, explained the organization’s purpose and goal. “We’re based at the University of Iowa. We’re in the School of Planning and Public Affairs, but we work with over 25 departments at University of Iowa to match faculty and students to do community-engaged projects in communities across Iowa. So, every year, communities apply to work with our program, and we select two or three communities to work with us over the course of a whole academic year. And so this year we’re working in Lyon County, Granger, Iowa, and Ottumwa, Iowa.”
Students and faculty members came to Lyon County Aug. 29 to begin work on five projects throughout the county and meet with project leads. These were at Larchwood, Lester, Inwood, Lake Pahoja and George. Laux said they are planning to do at least 10 projects in total by the end of the school year. Some of the spring semester projects in the works are planned to work with Alvord, Doon and Friends of Blood Run.
Paul Hanley, lead professor in senior design at the University of Iowa, explained these groups are fourth-year students in their capstone design course. “In the fall, I have the five groups I supervise and then in the spring semester, we usually have 15 to 20 projects, and I have co-instructors in that.”
He continued, “So part of Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities, our approach is to go to communities within the state of Iowa, here for civil and environmental engineering. Last spring, we completed our 200th project. So we’ve been doing this for approximately 12 years, and we visit or we’ve worked in 94 different communities within the state. We go from the Mississippi to the Missouri River.”
Travis Kraus, director of Iowa Initiative for Sustainable Communities and professor in the school of Public and Planning Affairs, added the benefits communities see through this partnership. “A benefit of this collaboration is that we are helping communities with decision-making support. So we can give them what we call preliminary interview reports through this team, or we’re doing lots and lots of other kinds of projects with students from different majors as well. Students have information they can use to make more informed decisions and then, ideally, and this happens seems to happen more regularly now, the students’ work is so good they can actually see some financial benefits through cost savings from taking that work to a consulting firm, for example, or using it to apply for a grant.”
As for why they chose to come to Lyon County this year, Laux explained it was a combined effort between Becca Bixler, Inwood mayor, and Jen Smit, Lyon County Economic Development director. “So we put out a call for proposals, looking for partnering communities, and mayor Becca Bixler and Jen reached out with interest in partnering in Inwood and all of Lyon County, and shared really compelling ideas for how not just engineering, but other departments, the School of Planning and Public Affairs, can work with journalism and mass communication department, and others, and art and art history, where we could bring students to Lyon County to do these projects over the course of a whole year.”
She also added the partnership was being funded by the Lyon County Riverboat Foundation. “I’m really grateful the Riverboat Foundation agreed to fund the partnership, and so we feel like so far Lyon County is an excellent partner, willing to take the time.”
“I just think it’s a great opportunity for any of the communities in our county, as a whole, to have the ability to have a project completed or on a shelf ready for a grant proposal. They don’t usually get that type of opportunity,” said Jen Smit. “As we know, engineering in the real world costs money for projects, and when you’re a small community, to have some of that cost offset, I think it’s a great opportunity.”
As for the projects worked on last Saturday, in Inwood students are working with Becca Bixler in developing a new subdivision to the town. “This group specifically, they’re more of the civil engineering students more than the environmental engineering,” said Hanley.
The students spent the morning meeting with Bixler and Dennis Scholten, talking about the layout of the town and the best way to design the sites, roads, etc. They then spent time talking measurements around the area.
At Lake Pahoja, conservation director Justin Smith met with students at the Lyon County Nature Center to go over their project. This group was looking at the best way to connect the walking trail started in Inwood all the way to the lake, as well as possibly to West Lyon.
“They wanted to see what our existing trail looks like, how it laid through the land,” Smith said. “They also wanted to check out all the culverts and places where water was running underneath so they had an idea where all the best connection points would be when a trail came and left here.”
In Larchwood, students met with mayor Ken Kerkvliet at the current community center and gym. They discussed ways the site could be used once the city’s new community center is constructed, which is expected to be done next August.
“The students have been asked to come in and tell us how that gymnasium could be repurposed for something else for the city,” Kerkvliet said. “Of course, there’s always the option to tear it down, but we wanted to see if there was some useful purpose that building could provide.”
In Lester, the group of students there spent time around the Prairie Lane development with Michael Leuthold, wastewater project engineer, taking measurements for possible new building projects. The main project this group was focused on was a senior housing development.
“We’re doing a housing needs study for the county as well,” said Leuthold. “There will be a need for more senior housing based on the number of senior people over the age of 65 that will age into that age bracket. So, it’s kind of interesting to think about the subdivision that would appeal to those folks.”
“Like our professor told us, today’s going be a short day. There’s only a culvert we have to measure. There’re some roads and there’s a trail. We really get to get to the designing part pretty soon,” said Brigid O’Hara, one of the students from University of Iowa working on the project.
As these projects progress, students will check in with their project leads once every other week online. Kraus said over 10,000 hours of work will be put in by the end of the school year in aid of the communities.