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CEM Faculty: A Leading Opportunity for the Civil Engineering Profession
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to highlight an opportunity available to Construction Engineering and Management (CEM) faculty to facilitate leadership into Civil Engineering (CE) undergraduate education. Matriculating students today are not prepared to deal with the interpersonal issues attendant to addressing and solving today's CE activities, particularly assuming positions of leadership. A unique opportunity to rectify the lack of formal leadership preparation has been created by the change in the accreditation process. The shift from prescriptive criteria (doing what is specified) to outcomes (accomplishing goals and targets) via the new Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accreditation criteria is viewed as a major step toward enabling education change, reform, and innovation. This paper describes "what" constitutes leadership, "why" CEM faculty members are positioned to lead in this effort, and "how" leadership can be taught and modeled. If CEM faculty members fail to proactively integrate leadership principles into the curriculum, we abandon our responsibility to the profession and squander the opportunity to fully develop the intellectual assets of the future - the students - entrusted to us.
The construction industry is looking for college graduates with leadership, communication skills, business acumen, and practical experience. Hence, a construction-related curriculum must provide students with opportunities to have real-world experience while working on their degree and have a culture of constant innovation in pedagogy to deliver theoretical-practical learning experiences. This paper systematizes the experience of developing a Construction Engineering and Management (CEM) track for the Civil Engineering undergraduate program at the University of Virginia (UVA). The track was developed with subject matter experts and executives from six construction companies and one design firm. With a renewed teaching-learning ecosystem, the track welcomes the missing actors, fits the industry needs, changes the traditional roles of professors and industry experts, and expands the classroom concept. The findings and lessons learned from this experience are relevant to civil and construction engineering programs seeking to improve existing curriculum or develop more context and practice-based curriculum.
Historically, ASCE has worked to develop civil engineering (CE) education to ensure that the profession is continuously strengthened. Based on recent events, ASCE is poised to lead CE education into the twenty-first century. Of specific interest in this regard is the recent support shown by the Board of Direction for the master's as the first professional degree (FPD) for CE practice. To understand the ramifications of the board's policy statement, it is necessary to grasp the evolution of the FPD concept as well as undergraduate engineering curricular reform in general. Examining the shape of past debate opens a window onto the board's historic policy statement, which in turn helps illuminate the future course of action. Moreover, the writers contend that significant educational reform is necessary for CE to confront the changing, competitive global marketplace. Accordingly, three possible models to implement the FPD are explored: (1) Current master's degree programs; (2) 150-credit hour requirement used by accountancy; and (3) professional school.