Producing engineers capable of identifying, preventing, and solving building, construction and environmental problems is the department's objective. In addition to the well-established graduate programs in environmental, water resource and geotechnical engineering, students in the department may also choose to study in the emerging field of geoenvironmental engineering. Campus facilities, including a National Science Foundation-funded earthquake simulator, permit a case-study approach, which exposes students to real-world problems and allows experimentation, testing and analysis. Courses are available online and on campus, most of the professional degrees have online courses included in the curriculum.