Changing the Status Quo in Environmental Engineering Education in Response to Emerging Markets

The job market and skill needs have been expanding for environmental engineers requiring more interdisciplinary training and global citizenship. The 1970s was a decade of regulatory activities, the 1980s was a decade of major environmental disasters, the 1990s was a decade for global awakening, and the first decade of the 21st century is becoming the decade of concern for increasing global environmental stress. In parallel with the environmental trends, the environmental engineering programs have evolved from strictly water/wastewater focus to interdisciplinary programs with a wide selection of courses such as computer science, meteorology, aquatic biology, and ecology in addition to the classical environmental engineering curriculum. Advancements in science and technology, changing demographics, new delivery structures, changes in educational programs and policies, new regulatory requirements, increased global interactions, and recent large scale events with significant environmental impacts have increased the needs for engineers who are trained in environmental engineering discipline with adequate skills for addressing the emerging challenges. This technical note presents the emerging job markets and the corresponding skill needs for environmental engineers to respond to current and evolving environmental challenges both at regional and global scales.     

Graduate Education in Construction Management

Construction management has become a vital aspect of the construction process over the years. This paper reviews the Master’s programs in construction engineering and management (CEM) offered by departments of civil engineering in the United States. The findings indicate that only 20% of the American educational institutions, which offer accredited civil engineering programs, offer Master’s programs in CEM. Most of the Master’s programs in CEM constitute an effort to convey information to students on mainly six categories, namely, contract administration, project management, scheduling, equipment management, construction technology, and CEM research. It seems that the Master’s programs in CEM do not differ much from program to program in terms of content. When the trends in course offerings are compared in 1982, 1996, and 2008, there seems to be minimal change except for the number of courses in project management that went up significantly while the number of courses in cost estimating went down. The trends in the remaining courses have been stable. Even though contents and trends in CEM programs appear to be relatively stable, there seems to be some variability in the concentration of the course offerings. Some CEM programs concentrate on some of the categories at the expense of other categories. A close relationship and a sound dialogue between construction educators and the industry are likely to lead to Master’s programs that are in sync with the expectations of the industry.     

Using Bernier v. Boston Edison to Teach Undergraduate Engineering Students about Professional Responsibility

The matter of design fault is presented in a timeless case from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts regarding a concrete light pole. The detail in the printed ruling provides engineering students with remarkable insight into the design process and the failure of that process to adequately consider the potential of product failure and the impact on both automobiles and pedestrians. The court had strong opinions on the failure of Boston Edison design engineers. Students readily understand the impact of omission of foreseeability of design failure, and the case thus serves as a discussion prompt in considering engineering professionalism and potential legal consequences.     

Incorporating Inquiry-Based Laboratory Experiment in Undergraduate Environmental Engineering Laboratory

From fall 1999 to spring 2003, an introductory environmental engineering course was revised to include an inquiry-based “open” experiment for enhanced student learning. The students designed and conducted experiments to address a problem of their choice. The students’ experimental topics covered air, water, and soil quality and remediation. At the completion of the experiment each student completed a questionnaire that assessed the efficacy of the open experiments in enhancing student learning; 109 student responses were subjected to statistical analysis. Examination of the survey revealed the students’ belief that the open experiment aided in their understanding of basic and applied environmental concepts. Females in particular indicated that the open experiment enhanced their learning of basic concepts. Neither group size nor selection criteria impacted how well students worked within their groups. By utilizing open-ended questions in the survey, a significant portion of student responses indicated that they enjoyed the experience.     

Not Making the Grade: Expansive Soils and Higher Education in Texas

Expansive soils are a serious geologic hazard in Texas; accordingly, one would expect Texas engineering colleges to offer a strong educational program on expansive soils at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. However, data from the geotechnical programs within the civil engineering departments of Texas engineering colleges suggest that while Texas educational programs cover the topic of expansive soils in varying degrees, the educational effort is highly skewed toward traditional geotechnical and foundation issues. In most cases, treatment of the expansive soil problem is limited and is not adequate when measured against the scope and extent of expansive soil problems in Texas.     

Environmental Process Engineering: Building Capacity for Sustainability

The chronic problems resulting from unsustainable production and consumption, as well as acute environmental problems from accidents and inadequate waste treatment, are continuing challenges for environmental engineering professionals. This paper explores the change in the role of educators from transferring knowledge to building the capacity of future engineers to meet these challenges. Progress in understanding and managing the interactions between the industrial, natural, and social systems for sustainable development is being made in a number of disciplines. Help in distilling this knowledge for environmental engineers can come from environmental process engineering (EPE) as a subdiscipline of chemical and environmental engineering. By applying the fundamentals of process engineering to environmental problems, EPE can help bundle together the diverse work from different environmental compartments. Many references to EPE can be found in university programs in Germany and the United States, but what is meant by EPE is not usually explicitly defined, and often refers to a collection of environmental unit operations. An expanded definition of EPE in the context of the current reform movements in engineering education is proposed. Trends in education and research in Germany and the United States are discussed within the framework of the societal and industrial transition toward sustainable development.     

Geometry in Architectural Engineering Education Revisited

Geometric conceptualization has always been among the essential mental tools required for the invention, modeling, and visualization of spatial building structures. Furthermore, without an understanding of the geometric and mathematical base of computer graphical procedures, the ability to cope with significant developments in advanced architectural graphical representation and to adapt to the ever-changing technology in this area is limited. Despite the unquestionable significance of geometric thinking for the conception, design, and realization of buildings, the role of geometry in the education of architectural engineers, a role that traditionally constituted a significant part of their education, has been downplayed. This paper presents a systematic effort to strengthen architectural engineers’ skills in the understanding of geometric concepts and approaches that are directly related to their profession. Toward this effort a body of knowledge, mainly from Euclidean and Parabolic geometries, has been identified and organized in content units. The manner in which these content units have been consolidated into the curriculum of the architectural engineering program at the University of Texas at Austin is also presented.     

Undergraduate Summer Research in Structural Engineering

For the last seven years, a summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates site in structural engineering, funded by the National Science Foundation, has operated at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During this time, 33 students from 22 colleges and universities have participated in the site. Participants are recruited nationally and have come from as far away as California and Puerto Rico. The program is intended to provide students interested in graduate studies with an introduction to research methods, and to provide students who will not continue their studies past a bachelor of science in civil engineering with a better understanding of how research provides the theoretical foundation of engineering practice. Students work individually with faculty on literature reviews, computer modeling, laboratory testing, and field research. Three students have researched structural failure case studies and the technical and ethical lessons to be learned from them. Participants also have the opportunity to tour construction sites and construction material manufacturers’ and fabricators’ facilities. During the past three years, an ethics seminar series has been added. At the end of the program, students prepare research papers and Web pages documenting their work and present their results to faculty, students, and other participants.     

Incorporating a Sustainability Module into First-Year Courses for Civil and Environmental Engineering Students

As articulated in the Bodies of Knowledge for Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering, all civil and environmental engineering students should be introduced to the concept of sustainability. A sustainability module was added into two required first-year, 1-credit introductory courses, one for civil engineering and one for environmental engineering. Data from approximately 150 students were collected. Student attitudes about sustainability were evaluated using a written survey. There was greater initial knowledge of sustainability and positive attitudes toward sustainability among students enrolled in the environmental engineering course compared with those in the civil engineering course, but this did not translate into better performance on the related homework assignment. There was strong evidence that the inclusion of the sustainability module encouraged the students to consider sustainability in subsequent course assignments, even when not explicitly prompted to do so. This indicates that early emphasis of sustainability may affect the students’ concepts of its importance in civil and environmental engineering.     

Snapshot of Graduate Student Seminar Practices

Civil engineering departments in the United States were surveyed to ascertain the range of practices for conducting seminars for graduate students. Two separate internet-based survey instruments were developed and utilized. One survey targeted department heads to determine if the responding program had a seminar for graduate students and, if so, details about the program. In the instance where a program did not have a graduate student seminar, the survey solicited reasons for the program choosing to cancel or not have one. A second survey was disseminated to graduate students. It was intended to gather opinions of students regarding their experience with the graduate student seminar. Forty eight civil engineering department heads and 231 graduate students responded. The consensus among respondents is that a graduate seminar can be a valuable part of the student experience.     

Geotechnical Physical Modeling for Education: Learning Theory Approach

As physical modeling sees increasing use in geotechnical engineering education, there is a need for a strategic approach for integrating this powerful simulation technique into courses in a way that ensures the greatest benefit for students. For this reason, a learning theory approach, which recognizes the natural learning cycle of students, has been developed. The approach is based on a modified version of the learning theorist David Kolb’s “theory of experiential learning.” The approach emphasizes a variety of learning styles and thus is appealing to a broad range of students. The approach is relatively easy to apply to traditional geotechnical engineering coursework and requires only a modest effort to adopt. It is expected that by using this approach when designing course modules, instructors can increase the likelihood that comprehensive learning will take place. While this paper focuses on physical modeling for geotechnical engineering, the approach presented here has educational applications to an array of other civil engineering topics.     

On the Job versus Graduate School Training of Forensic Engineers—An Instructor and Professional Engineer’s View

This paper provides insights from a graduate forensic engineering course for civil engineers and analyses its success from the instructor and student perspectives. The objective of the study was to evaluate teaching methods and settings for training of forensic engineers in light of new body of knowledge needs for the profession. The assessment methodology used student feedback before, during, and after the semester-long course and the instructor’s observations and prior forensic engineering consulting experience. The course was structured around student learning objectives that paralleled actual engineer training in professional consulting firms. The students used hands-on learning, field investigations, library-based research, and report writing. Focus was placed on learning basic research skills and applying scientific method which were at low levels among students. This is of concern to the profession as these skills, along with analytical ability, form part of the basic tool set of most engineers. By the end of the course, writing and review skills had improved significantly and student perceptions of the specialized skills turned more favorable. The students overwhelmingly appreciated inclusion of guest lectures by forensic engineers to demonstrate the relevance of this field. It was concluded that inadequate technical writing and reading skills, symptomatic of students in many engineering programs can be corrected through a forensic engineering course.     

Sustainability Education: Approaches for Incorporating Sustainability into the Undergraduate Curriculum

The objectives of this study were to describe two approaches to incorporating sustainability into the undergraduate engineering curricula and to list a variety of existing course resources that can easily be adopted or adapted by science and engineering faculty for this purpose. The two approaches described are (1)?redesigning existing courses through development of new curricular materials that still meet the objectives of the original course and (2)?developing upper division elective courses that address specific topics related to sustainability, such as manufacturing or life-cycle assessment, in depth. Case studies of three courses—Green Industrial Organic Chemistry, Environmentally Conscious Design and Manufacturing (Kettering University), and Sustainable Engineering (University of Oklahoma)—are presented. Assessment results from Green Industrial Organic Chemistry indicate that alternative curricular materials incorporating green chemistry can be used to meet the learning objectives of more traditional courses in organic chemistry, which are already required for many engineering majors. Environmentally Conscious Design and Manufacturing assessment data indicate that students increased their knowledge and application of industrial ecology topics as a result of taking the course. Preliminary assessment data from Sustainable Engineering indicate that students applied concepts of global resource reserves, sustainable growth and development, design for environment, and life-cycle assessment in their course work or employment approximately 1?year after finishing the course.     

Approach for Integrating Professional Practice Issues into Undergraduate Environmental Engineering Design Projects

According to C. L. Dym and P. Little, the complete design process includes identifying a need or problem, recognizing constraints, identifying and developing courses of action, testing potential courses of action, selecting optimum courses of action, preparing the documents required for the design, managing the overall process, communicating the design, construction, and testing. We have addressed these design considerations by linking design projects in our introductory physicochemical treatment processes course (EV401, taken by second-semester juniors) and our senior capstone design course (EV490, taken by second-semester seniors). The process developed and implemented addresses the integration of professional practice into design inexperience. We require our cadet students to communicate with their customers, an illustrator, and tradesmen, three forms of communication that are necessarily quite different from traditional student-professor exchanges. Also, students must design under constraints, this time not because of the closed nature of the project but rather because of “real world” resource constraints: time to complete the project, a limited budget to purchase materials and labor, availability of materials, ease of construction, and balancing competing projects (in other courses). The first attempt at implementing this engineering design learning model occurred during the spring of 2001 in EV401. Herein we assess the design and construction of one of two projects, oriented toward modification of a surface-water treatment plant model. Results suggest that iterative growth can occur and a more complete appreciation of the design process can result.     

Educational Partnership to Establish Engineering/Construction Management Graduate Programs in Algeria

This paper describes a partnership between the University of Missouri–Rolla and the Université Abou-Bekr Belka?d de Tlemcen in Algeria in order to support the development of programs of instruction and faculty training in Algeria in the areas of engineering and construction management in order to create a self-sustaining educational infrastructure in Algeria. Specifically, the partnership aims to provide educational and technical assistance to Algeria in order for them to develop: (1) new graduate programs in engineering and construction management and (2) modern teaching methodologies including Internet and distance learning. Objectives of the partnership were to provide engineering and construction management skills and expertise in order to achieve international standards in the management area. The desired impact is summarized in terms of the ability to identify operations problems and implement solutions for improved strategic competitiveness, make sound decisions, plan, and control the key resources of an organization—money and people, critically analyze, evaluate, improve, or adapt existing technical and managerial systems, design and develop new technical and managerial systems, and coordinate different projects with a better harmony and cost effectiveness. The long-term expected outcomes of the partnership are Algerian faculty with strong backgrounds in engineering and construction management, a self-sustained learning environment for Algerian institutions, including engineering management and construction management graduate programs, continuing education, and short courses, and Internet-based multimedia teaching material for collaboration between the Algerian institutions and local industry.     

Preparing for the WATERS Network: Engaging Middle-School Science Students in Environmental Engineering

An educational outreach program connecting middle-school students with the importance of water quality and the role of environmental engineers was designed, implemented, and assessed as part of the infrastructure preparation and future educational plan of the Water and Environmental Research Systems (WATERS) Network. The educational program included a set of laboratory protocols modified according to the time, space, safety, and teaching-level constraints of the middle-school classroom. Additionally, a CyberCollaboratory was specifically created to engage students with data interpretation, excite them about real-world engineering applications, and extend the learning from the individual to the entire classroom by connecting an entire classroom’s data and guiding them in drawing conclusions from a larger context. Through pretest and posttest assessments, it was shown that 50% of the students involved showed a marked improvement in scores and that the overall class average increased by 13%, illustrating that the outreach program as a whole effectively taught students about engineering and its relation to water quality, specifically pH and hardness. The program delineated here should serve as a model for future student interaction with the WATERS Network and should help the current planning committee for educational outreach make further strides forward in integrating the WATERS Network into classrooms nationwide.     

Enhancing Civil Engineering Education and ABET Criteria through Practical Experience

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) has adopted a revised set of criteria for accrediting engineering programs. Nevertheless, as in the past, civil engineering departments will be required to demonstrate proficiency in specific subject areas which are included in the ABET program criteria. This paper investigates how civil engineering students at Lamar University improved their understanding of various subject areas required by ABET and listed in the Program Criteria for Civil and Similarly Named Engineering Programs and the General Criteria (professional component) by being involved with cooperative, part-time, and summer work experiences. In particular, the findings suggest that both undergraduate and graduate students believe that three areas have been greatly enhanced with engineering work. They include structural engineering, project management/scheduling and estimating, and teamwork. In addition, undergraduates perceive that their understanding of health and safety issues and ethical considerations has also increased. In contrast, graduate students believe that their knowledge of hydraulics, hydrology, and water resources, constructability, and economic factors has been enhanced by civil engineering work experiences.     

Assessing Outcomes Using Program Assessment Portfolio Approach

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology has developed and implemented new criteria for accrediting engineering technology programs in the United States. The new criteria, Technology Criteria 2000 (TC2K), have changed the way that engineering technology programs conduct their business. In order to survive in the future, each program has to develop a strategy to meet the new requirements specified in the TC2K. The Department of Engineering Technology at Texas Tech University has developed a program assessment portfolio (PAP) to assess the department performance toward the attainment of TC2K Criterion 1. This paper presents 12 assessment methods within the PAP. Particularly, it demonstrates how to develop and implement one of the assessment methods, pre- and postcourse assessment, to a senior-level course. Data collected from the implementation has been analyzed and results indicate that pre- and postcourse assessment provide valuable information regarding student learning. Furthermore, the information can be used to continue improving effectiveness of teaching.     

Improving Enrollment in the Master of Construction Management Program at Bowling Green State University

The Master of Industrial Technology in Construction Management program at Bowling Green State University has been experiencing undesirably low enrollment recently, which has led to an examination of the need for the continuation of the program. The program administrators researched their target students regarding their educational backgrounds, knowledge needs, preferred promotion channels, favored means of course delivery, financial restrictions, and time constraints to gain insight in order to enhance the existing curriculum and enrollment. The needs of the employers of the program’s graduates were also considered. The research tools were a questionnaire and reviews of the websites and literature of 42 master’s programs in construction management. This paper presents the findings of a questionnaire that was designed to identify the reasons for and solutions to this problem. Data analysis of the questionnaire identified issues of promotion, curriculum content, and course delivery. The respondents indicated that the master of construction management is a valuable degree that can prepare construction professionals to become senior managers. The research proposes the following corrective actions: Development and implantation of promotion plan, restructuring the curriculum content, and employment of more suitable course delivery means.