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.     

Introducing Smart Structures Technology into Civil Engineering Curriculum: Education Development at Lehigh University

Most of today’s civil engineering students are unaware of the potential use of smart structures technology in the design, construction, and maintenance of civil infrastructure systems. This paper presents recent education development in the area of smart structures technology at Lehigh University. The goal of this education development is to prepare the future engineer of society for this cutting-edge technology, for which they may see broad application in their professional practice. An overview of the smart structures technology in civil engineering applications, from a systems perspective, is first given in the paper. Educational activities incorporating smart structures technology into civil engineering curriculum are next presented in this paper.     

Information Technology in Civil Engineering Curriculum

The fast-moving world of information technology confronts the civil engineer with constant change. This creates challenges for educators and students because rapid change requires curricula to be flexible and educators to gain competency and access to new equipment and software. Whereas a decade ago, civil engineering educators debated how to teach “programming,” the picture is now much more complex. The paper reports on how information technologies are changing the practice of civil engineering and offers a new framework for integrating next-generation information technology into the civil engineering curriculum at the department level.     

Survey of the National Civil Engineering Curriculum

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive survey of over 40% of the nation’s undergraduate civil engineering programs. This analysis is based on uniform data collected for accreditation and is principally concerned with three major groups of courses: (1) math and science, (2) general education, and (3) engineering topics. The analysis reveals what is currently being taught in our nation’s civil engineering undergraduate programs, what is not being taught, and the implications for future professional practice. The paper discusses how the average national curriculum has changed historically, how well the curriculum satisfies Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology criteria, and what the current distribution of courses and topics says about the priorities of civil engineering education. Overall, the curriculum was found to be highly specialized in terms of technical subjects but lacking in focus regarding the liberal arts, professional skills, and systems thinking.     

Teaching Engineering Surveying in a Civil Engineering Program: Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment

As engineering surveying is highly concerned with its intensive involvement in the construction of roads and bridges, drainage systems, buildings, railways, and tunnels in civil engineering, the subject of engineering surveying is being offered by the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-Informatics to all undergraduate students who are taking the Bachelor of Civil Engineering Degree Program in the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Under the new outcome-based curriculum and work-integrated education requirements, the curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment for the subject are described here by answering the questions of “what are the goals and objectives of the curriculum,” “what should students learn,” and “how should it be learned, taught, and assessed.”     

Fluid Mechanics: An Essential Part of an Environmental Engineering Curriculum

In this paper we discuss teaching fluid mechanics to civil and environmental engineering majors at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Fluid mechanics is a key course in environmental engineering that ties together the physical aspects with chemical and biological aspects. We survey the historical development of the role of fluid mechanics in environmental engineering, discuss current needs and curriculum, and point out areas for potential improvements.     

Integrating Sustainable Design into Architectural Engineering Education: UNL-AE Program

Given the profound impact of the built environment on the resources of the earth, a growing number of institutions of higher education are preparing engineers to make sustainable design a standard in the construction industry. This paper looks at the diverse ways in which education in sustainable design can be integrated into engineering curricula using the architectural engineering (AE) program at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) as a case study example. The UNL program is unique in that it prepares students for careers in sustainable development through a curriculum that promotes both traditional and hands-on, experiential learning. Through coursework, research, workshops, student competitions, and even interaction with the UNL engineering facility, students learn how to make our built environment more sustainable. A key facet of this program is to connect the institution with the local community and industry to give students an opportunity to apply skills learned in the classroom to real-world problems in professional settings. Hence, this “green” integration actually takes place on two levels, within the UNL curriculum itself and within the larger context of the community and industry. Together, academia, the industry, and the community are preparing engineers to help ensure a more sustainable future for our world.     

Capstone Course in an Integrated Engineering Curriculum

The Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the United States Air Force Academy has developed a capstone senior level integration experience that blends technical aspects of an engineering design with construction and realistic issues of modern society. Technical designs accomplished by the students, prior to taking the capstone course, form the technical basis of the capstone design experience. The students review the technical design and prepare the project for construction through incorporating engineering standards and considering realistic issues. Issues considered include economy, constructability, and environmental aspects, as well as ethical, health and safety constraints. The students prepare a final design report and make an oral presentation to an interdisciplinary panel of engineering faculty. This capstone course is the culmination of a total integration experience, which includes a hands-on field engineering course, and two years of a rigorous engineering design curriculum.     

Implementing an Inclusive Curriculum for Women in Engineering Education

Engineering faculty are urged to be “inclusive” when teaching classes of diverse students. Research has shown that an inclusive approach not only assists the progress of socially and culturally underrepresented students, but it will also broaden the perspectives of all students, and thus improve the overall quality of an engineering program. The writers of this paper have collaborated over a number of years at the University of South Australia to make engineering education more inclusive. This process commenced with an institutionwide project to develop inclusive curricula by improving the understanding and practice of faculty, and developing guidelines to assist them in restructuring their courses to become more inclusive. In the engineering departments, the process was further developed through staff workshops to assist faculty with the redevelopment of course curricula using the university guidelines, as well as the collection and dissemination of material and examples appropriate for engineering programs. This paper describes some of these methods in more detail, as well as the obstacles the writers have encountered and the devices they have used to overcome objections and impediments. Specific examples from civil engineering are included.     

Crisis of Civil Engineering Education in Information Technology Age: Analysis and Prospects

The brightest students entering postsecondary education are often attracted by routes other than engineering that are perceived more likely to yield careers of higher prestige and greater returns. For civil engineering in particular, this is further compounded by the fact that the field is not traditionally viewed as a high-tech discipline. Thus, student quality, enrollment, and research funding in civil engineering programs have been declining across North America. The conservative construction industry is part of the problem; adjustments of this aging cartel to the new economy are still at the embryonic level. Civil engineering educators are facing the question, How do we change the “hard hat down in the ditch” image of civil engineering in the minds of the new information technology generation? This paper presents an analysis of possible causes of this problem and a vision for potential future solutions.     

Incorporation of Sustainability Concepts into a Civil Engineering Curriculum

The need arises to equip engineering students with a wider horizon of concepts in terms of environmental, economic, and social attributes, for decision making of sensitive to sustainability issues. Pedagogic frameworks have to address a multidisciplinary analysis of sustainability. This paper addresses the rationale behind the recent integration of sustainability concepts into an undergraduate civil engineering curriculum in Hong Kong. Incentives and barriers for implementation of the curriculum are addressed. A team-based design project with a problem-based learning approach is highlighted. The initial results of stakeholder evaluations suggested that multidisciplinary skills developed during the learning process might contribute significantly to pertinent knowledge on sustainability.     

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.     

Educating Students via Distance Learning for Civil Engineering Design

Two structural engineering courses were taught using distance-learning technology. One course was a graduate level, steel design course and the other was an undergraduate, elective, timber design course. Two-way live video and audio connections linked classrooms at San Jose State University and San Francisco State University. The interaction between student and teacher is discussed. These courses were the first time the California State University system offered students academic credit at either of two universities for a course taught via distance education from a single location. The challenges of teaching engineering design concepts via distance learning are discussed. Assessment of the teaching method was performed using student surveys and review of student grades. The assessment survey revealed that the students’ overall impression was positive. Grades received by the students at the Remote Site were lower than those at the Home Site, but this discrepancy may not have been a result of the distance-learning environment.     

Globalization Challenges, Legacies, and Civil Engineering Curriculum Reform

Across nations and industries, numerous changes are taking place due to globalization. Naturally, the effects are channelled back to the academic world and prominently felt at the level of higher learning in view of its constant contact with the industries. Universities and institutions have to reassess the adequacy of their existing curricula in fulfilling the needs arising from globalization. With reference to issues encountered in southeast Asia, this paper examines the necessity to rethink the curriculum of a baccalaureate degree in civil engineering and presents some recommendations for revamping the curricular structure. The context discussed is most relevant to small, developing countries, but generally concerns those countries with a legacy of educational systems similar to this region. One rising trend is the move toward a general engineering education at the undergraduate level; a professional degree is emphasized only at the master’s level. More management-related subjects may be included in the undergraduate curriculum to equip engineers with skills to cope with globalization challenges.     

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.     

Determining the Content of the First Course in Transportation Engineering

Transportation engineering constitutes a required portion of the civil engineering curriculum at over three-fourths of undergraduate civil engineering programs in the United States. The input of practicing transportation engineers is a critical source of information in determining the content of the first course in transportation engineering. A new survey was conducted in which respondents ranked 31 potential course topics by importance. The results are compared to a similar survey conducted 20?years before to determine which topics have increased in importance, which have become less critical to cover, and which continue to remain of high priority. Topics such as traffic safety and traffic flow characteristics are of considerably higher priority today than 20?years ago, while topics such as geometric design of highways and highway capacity studies continue to be of great importance. Preparation for follow-up and graduate coursework, for the Fundamentals of Engineering and Professional Engineer examinations, and issues of local setting are also considerations in determining the content of the first course in transportation engineering.     

Integrated Management Curriculum for Civil Engineers and Architects

While it is commonly thought worldwide that the education and training of architects and civil engineers require different patterns of learning, the writers of this paper opine that the teaching and learning of management subjects for both groups should be combined. Architecture and civil engineering faculties have many aspects in common, but, even when residing in the same faculty, the two disciplines rarely integrate successfully. This paper examines integration issues at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, where, over a period of 4 years, partial integration of architects and civil engineers in management subjects has been tested. The paper discusses the problems of devising a curriculum designed to satisfy both architecture and civil engineering undergraduate degree courses. Within the paper, discussion focuses on the outline for an integrated curriculum, the problems of timing, and logistics, and will report on some student experiences. Comment is also included on administrative issues, class size, relative merits of saving resources versus consequential inconvenience, the problems of making assumptions about relative prior knowledge, and expectations of students. Discussion of the various system changes that need to be put in place before such a liaison can be totally successful is presented. The paper provides valuable insight into the workings of two university faculties at the University of Auckland, which will allow parallels with other universities worldwide to be made.     

Architectural Engineering Curriculum at Illinois Institute of Technology

Illinois Institute of Technology started a bachelor of science degree program in architectural engineering in the fall of 1995. The program's curriculum requires the students to take 136 semester credit hours during a period of eight semesters, with the option for specialization in one of the three main areas of architectural engineering. To share the experience worldwide with schools that intend to offer similar bachelor degrees, this paper presents the architectural engineering curriculum at Illinois Institute of Technology. It discusses the objectives of the curriculum, the constraints upon its structure, as well as the challenges that face the establishment of an architectural engineering program.     

Integrating Ethics into the Engineered Construction Curriculum

Equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, security, civic duty, justice, honor, and the rule of law are some of the widely held values in society. These are the values engineers must adopt to comply with regulations. Unfortunately, there is a lack of awareness in construction education regarding how to integrate social awareness and ethical behavior into professional practice. Several challenges facing construction engineering educators are how to develop strategies that will raise the awareness of students regarding ethical issues related to construction and how to provide a framework to make ethical decisions. Social values should serve as the basis for university-level ethics instruction. The objectives of this paper are to discuss the various disciplines that are available for use in developing course material and classroom presentations, and to describe a framework for making ethical decisions. Problem solving in ethics is a skill that is very much needed by students, but is quite difficult to teach. The approach described herein uses real world construction ethics cases and invited guest lectures from the construction industry plus multiple required and elective courses explore ethical theories, concepts of critical thinking, and major ethical issues related to the construction industry.