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.     

Undergraduate Research Mentoring Model in Construction Engineering and Management

The construction industry is a major player in the nation’s economy. The complex nature of the construction industry, coupled with the challenges of global competitiveness and changing regulatory requirements, has created the need for providing higher levels of education, experience, and training for construction professionals. An essential and integral component of the required education and training must be the research training of undergraduate civil and construction students, encouraging them to pursue advanced education and research careers in this area. With this in mind, the writer developed a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) summer program at Western Michigan University that focuses on construction engineering and management issues and problems. This construction-oriented undergraduate research training program is the first REU site in the United States to be funded by the National Science Foundation. This paper will describe the structure of the REU program, the types of activities undertaken by the REU participants, and the results of the program evaluation and assessment.     

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.     

Construction Engineering Today

The factors that are considered in analyzing technical solutions and the tools used to obtain technical solutions have changed for construction engineers over the past 30 years. This paper discusses these changes and their impacts. It then outlines a process that several heavy civil contracting firms use to generate work plans for their field operations, using the details of the process at Granite Construction as an example. The paper concludes by identifying the key factors in the success of a work plan and providing some thoughts on what construction engineering education should emphasize.     

Pioneering Construction Engineering Education

In the 1930's, a small number of educators and contractors began to advocate that colleges and universities develop programs in construction engineering. Through the Great Depression and World War II, they debated what the nature of construction engineering education ought to be. Following World War II, the climate among educators and contractors was receptive to the ideas which the pioneers in construction engineering education had been advocating for 15 yr. Colleges and universities began to offer construction engineering options in their civil engineering curricula.     

Development and Application of Competencies for Graduate Programs in Energy and Sustainability

Educational competencies represent learning objectives and are used to plan educational programs, develop curricula, and assess existing programs, among other functions. After reviewing the literature and offerings at more than 20 universities, the existence of a comprehensive set of educational competencies in the area of energy and sustainability was not identified. This paper motivates and presents model competencies for graduate education programs in the energy and sustainability area, which is called Energy for Sustainability (EfS). Energy for Sustainability follows from the perspective that the provision of energy is a key element in promoting the goals of sustainability. The nature and use of competencies in education planning and assessment is reviewed, and recommendations for model competencies for two EfS specialties, “Buildings and Urban Environments” and “Energy Systems and Policy,” are presented. Competencies are prioritized, and their use in developing new multidisciplinary master’s and doctoral programs at the University of Coimbra is discussed. The competencies promote a wide range of understanding and capabilities aimed at the technical, economical, social, and institutional factors needed to manage and transition current energy systems towards the goals of sustainability.     

Macrolevel and Microlevel Frameworks of Experiential Learning Theory in Construction Engineering Education

The experiential learning theory is one of the best-known learning theories in education and has been explored and developed for decades through various studies in higher education. This learning method is expected to provide a significantly better learning environment for engineering subjects, such as construction techniques and design methods and alternatives, which may occur in most of the construction engineering disciplines. Nevertheless, the theory has hardly been used in construction engineering courses. In this study, the authors perform an in-depth review of the learning theory and present a case study, formwork design example, wherein the theory can be explicitly applied in construction engineering education. Research findings reveal students’ responses to the learning theory and lessons learned. Correlation analysis is conducted to explore how students’ performance in learning can be influenced by this learning theory.     

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.     

History of Construction, Engineering, and Management in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State

At Penn State, the credit for broadening the Civil Engineering Department’s longstanding academic focus on analysis and design to include the construction phase must go to Dr. Harmer A. Weeden and his longtime associate Dr. Thomas D. Larson. Jack H. Willenbrock joined the Department as an Instructor in June 1968 and grew the construction program so that today about a fourth to a third of the civil undergraduates obtain employment in the construction industry. The program has awarded about 250 postbaccalaureate degrees.     

Construction Management Program

The typical limitations of the existing construction management programs are the lack of an integrated approach to managerial decisions in real life construction environment, not enough emphasis on engineering design, construction methods and communication skills, and poor coordination between the undergraduate and the graduate studies. An effective construction management program should. integrate teaching on undergraduate and graduate levels and research. On the undergraduate level it should provide the students with a good insight into all managerial tasks in civil engineering projects. On the graduate level it should allow specialization in the various areas of interest both to the practicing engineers and also to students who wish to pursue an academic career. The program should strongly interact with research and engineering practice.     

Education in Construction Engineering and Management Built on Tradition: Blueprint for Tomorrow

Construction continues to be a significant part of the global economy and shapes the built environment and quality of life for people around the world. In the United States, construction is a multibillion dollar annual enterprise, employing nearly 10 million people. However, it appears that the fragmented nature of the industry continues to hamper productivity and hoped-for gains in efficiency. Issues involve an array of regulatory and legal constructs that: (1) redistribute risk; (2) present only low barriers to entry (making company startup somewhat easy); and (3) fail to provide the quality and quantity of labor necessary. These factors continue to produce overall inefficiencies throughout the construction industry, and ill prepare the industry for the formidable challenges of globalization, sustainability, population growth, and wise use of resources. The purpose of this paper is to review the past and present of construction engineering within the context of civil engineering, and to prescribe practical change to revitalize construction engineering education to meet future demands.     

Problem-Based Learning Approach to Construction Management Teaching

This paper describes construction management teaching for the Master of Engineering in civil engineering course at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom. This course is a 5-yr undergraduate degree accredited by the Institution of Civil Engineers for membership in the Institution subject to graduates satisfying the appropriate postgraduate training objectives. Construction management teaching takes place in the third, fourth, and fifth years of the degree and is structured to make effective use of both traditional and problem-based learning teaching methods. Examples are given of two problem-based learning courses used in the fourth and fifth year of the degree course. Both are based on complex construction projects and provide students with the opportunity to apply and synthesis knowledge gained on the traditionally taught third year course. Formal feedback from students and informal feedback from local industry suggests that the courses are meeting their overall objective of producing graduates with relevant knowledge and skills in construction management.     

Fifty Years of Progress in Construction Engineering Research

This paper provides insight into how and why construction has developed as a research based discipline over the past 50 years. The writer presents anecdotal information about certain critical events which played a role in shaping the thrust of construction research in the United States. The acceptance of construction engineering and management as a university level program and discipline is strongly tied to research and the publication of scholarly work.     

World Survey of Civil Engineering Programs on Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites for Construction

The Editorial Board of the American Society of Civil Engineers Journal of Composites for Construction (Lawrence C. Bank, Editor) sponsored a survey of the civil/structural engineering programs around the world on the subject of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites, excluding the traditional steel–concrete composite construction and fiber reinforced concrete. This paper summarizes the main results from the survey. During the last decade, considerable focus has been devoted to the use of FRP composites in construction. The main driving force is the need for revitalizing the aging infrastructure with innovative materials and structural systems that last longer and require less maintenance. As the construction industry embraces FRPs in the field, the need for educating civil engineers with background on the subject has become more evident. Despite a significant number of field applications and laboratory research, the survey shows that FRPs have not yet been fully implemented in the engineering curricula, and the classrooms are still lagging behind. To improve this situation, civil engineering and their extension programs must provide sufficient training on unique features of FRPs so that engineers could design or specify them in construction. This survey should be repeated as a gauging tool again at the end of this decade.     

Project Management Application for Engineering Program Accreditation Preparation

This paper presents guidelines for applying project management tools and techniques to the process of preparing for a program accreditation site visit. The premise of the paper is that the proven tools and techniques of project management are effective in managing all the steps required in accreditation preparation as well as postvisit followups. The basic lesson offered by the paper’s approach is that accreditation preparation should not be turned into a last-minute crash project. Rather, proactive preparation steps should be instituted early to facilitate communication, cooperation, and coordination of the entire process. The guidelines provided in the paper are useful not only for program review, but also for continuous process and curriculum improvement. The paper cites two graduate program examples of Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc. preparation at the Air Force Institute of Technology.     

Construction Engineering Management Educators: History and Deteriorating Community

The history of construction engineering and management education closely follows the emergence of the construction industry as an economic force in the United States. The initial introduction of programs in the post-World War II era was followed by specialization and the introduction of graduate construction specialties in the early 1960s. However, the lack of qualified individuals was recognized as a factor in successfully developing the construction engineering management (CEM) focus as an academic discipline. Today, that concern continues as CEM programs in the United States find themselves under attack by academic colleagues for issues such as lack of qualified faculty candidates and lack of funding opportunities. This paper addresses the status of the construction academic community by examining the common history of the CEM faculty through a genealogical approach, the historical research record through an examination of the publication record, and the questions that face a community that has appeared to slip from its intellectual peak.     

Linkages between Construction Engineering Education and Research

The needs of the construction industry require that an appropriate balance be provided between construction engineering topics and management topics in both education and research. Because construction is less mature as a research area compared to other areas in civil engineering, limitations on research funding have made the investigation of construction management topics more feasible in comparison to construction engineering topics. Because faculty members are drawn from the pool of Ph.D. students who have primarily researched management topics, there has been a tendency for them to continue emphasis on management topics in both education and research. Other civil engineering disciplines form their research programs around the needs of design codes and standards’ development, and academic participation is high. Similar efforts exist within construction engineering; however, there is less academic participation. It is suggested that greater effort be invested in the improvement of construction process standards and specifications so that construction engineering research efforts can advance construction process standards and stimulate increased engineering educational exposure. It is also suggested that academics who are interested in construction engineering research should consider participating in the specification improvement processes that occur at the national and state levels. A process for wider participation in construction engineering research and standards development is recommended.     

Research Trend of Public-Private Partnership in Construction Journals

An impressive series of content analyses of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) publications between 1998 and 2003 from four internationally renowned construction journals (including the International Journal of Project Management, the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, the Construction Management and Economics, and the Engineering Construction and Architectural Management) was reported. Their work inspired the writers of this paper to continue from where they left it. Based on a two-stage literature review, PPP articles from 1998 to 2008 were analyzed in terms of the annual number of PPP articles published, the writers’ contribution, and the research focus in their studies. From the analysis it was found that the number of PPP publications in these journals has been increasing. This finding might imply that PPPs are becoming more important to the construction industry at large. In addition, this study also found that the U.K. researchers have published the largest number of PPP articles, followed by those from the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, China, and Germany. Although the build-operate-transfer scheme was the most frequently investigated form of PPP in earlier research, the diverse concept of PPP has attracted a lot of research interest and has become the focus of most recent PPP publications. Research topics published in these journals on investment environment, governance issues, and other supported areas tend to receive more attention from researchers. Moreover, complicated and vigorous analysis techniques such as game theory and fuzzy set theory have also been applied in this field of study.     

Teaching Construction Contracts: Mutual Learning Experience

Construction contract modules are delivered to second-year architectural technology and construction/construction management students undertaking foundation and undergraduate degree programs. Feedback and assessment results from recent years showed that students generally found these modules difficult. Studies were conducted to further understand students’ experiences and expectations, to assess quality of teaching, and to evaluate the dissemination of theoretical and practical knowledge during the delivery of construction contract modules. The objective was to review the methods used for teaching, learning, and assessment of construction contract modules and make recommendations to inform and improve future module development and delivery. This paper is based on a first-time experience of teaching a law-related subject to construction students. Reflection on the teaching and assessment methods implemented during the term and on student responses permits conclusions to be drawn on how best to improve students’ learning experience and simultaneously maintain the university’s quality standards.     

Educating Professional Construction Managers

The management of construction has traditionally been the function of the civil engineer. The civil engineer is no longer educated to hit the ground running in an entry level position in the construction industry. To better serve the traditional needs of the industry, two year and four year construction technology programs were developed. The curriculum emphasis has generally been toward the general contractor as the employer. However, the construction industry is undergoing change. Innovative contracting systems such as design‐build and construction management have become increasingly popular. There are new leadership requirements. The potential for future high level positions can be enhanced to meet these requirements by augmenting engineering capabilities with business and construction management theory. This can be done within civil engineering curriculums leading to an advanced degree.