Workforce Demographics among Project Engineering Professionals—Crisis Ahead?

The age and experience profile of project engineering professionals employed by both owners and contractors has recently become a concern due to downsizing, retirements, and lack of hiring during the 1990s. Data were gathered from U.S. Census panels and from 27 owner firms and 23 contractor firms within the Construction Industry Institute to investigate the extent of this issue. In particular, the study examined changes in industry staffing levels, projected industry staffing levels, the current age and experience profile of project engineering staffs, current and projected hiring practices, and retention levels. The results of the data analyses indicate that, while substantial downsizing occurred among project engineering professionals during the early 1990s, the era of downsizing appears to be at an end. However, the high proportion of engineering professionals nearing retirement suggests that the transfer of knowledge from more to less experienced employees is an area of critical importance for both owners and contractors. Data showing demographic breakdowns using these analyses will be given, conclusions drawn, and policy implications outlined.     

Impact of Nanotechnology on Future Civil Engineering Practice and Its Reflection in Current Civil Engineering Education

Current civil engineering education should address the need to provide a broad vision, develop the higher-order skills of future civil engineers, enable them to adopt emerging technologies, and formulate innovative solutions to complex problems. This paper introduces relevant nanotechnology developments to convey the new vision and inspire creativity in civil engineering. It also presents a pedagogical framework for integrating nanotechnology education into a civil engineering curriculum and cultivating self-regulated learning and creativity skills for civil engineering students. The pedagogical framework includes the introduction of nanotechnology innovations and other relevant innovative technologies, and explicit instructions on cognitive strategies for facilitating and inspiring self-regulated learning and creativity. It is implemented with problem/project-based learning for a cocurricular project that requires self-regulated learning and creativity. This pedagogical framework provides a model for integrating emerging technology education and higher-order skill development into existing engineering curriculum. The outcomes from the implementation of the pedagogical framework are presented, and their further improvements are discussed.     

Certification and Accreditation in Civil Engineering

Certification has been common for technicians for many years but specialty certification is rapidly becoming important to engineering practitioners in addition to or as a substitute for licensure in some fields. Certification and accreditation are closely related but there are also important differences. International standards now exist for accreditation of certification programs and could provide the basis for mutual recognition of specialty certification worldwide. ASCE should seek international accreditation of its specialty certification programs and play an appropriate role in defining international standards related to specialty certification and assessment of conformity to those standards.     

Civil Engineering Education and Complex Systems

Civil engineering is an interdisciplinary field, and most of the projects designed and built represent very complex systems, both during the construction phase and in the built phase. This research describes how a course in land development that included engineering design elements, lectures that also touched on other related fields, and a field journal assignment at a “green” (sustainable) construction site facilitated students’ understanding of complex systems. Results suggest that this course design facilitates the development of students’ proficiencies in several skill sets, and can increase students’ understanding of the complexity involved in civil engineering projects.     

Roles of Civil Engineering Faculty

The education of civil engineers who will continue to fulfill the societal demands of the 21st century has been the subject of a number of workshops and conferences in recent years. The writers believe that the role of civil engineering faculty in the education of future engineers is extremely important. Faculty will be required to teach new topics in different ways and with different tools. Yet in a research university, teaching is often only one of four or five activities a faculty member must perform. In a typical faculty reward system for research universities, teaching is not considered as important as paper publication or research marketing. In this paper, faculty needs are outlined, the roles of faculty members are discussed, and the current faculty reward systems are critically reviewed.     

The Civil Engineering Resource Library

The delivery of civil engineering projects requires civil engineers to address a broad spectrum of issues generated by both project participants and regulatory agencies. Providing tools that assist team members in addressing these issues through the use of information and knowledge from previous projects may reduce project errors by creating informed decision makers. Recent advances in communications and computer technologies provide the opportunity to enhance professional and student access to these resources. The Civil Engineering Resource Library research effort explores this opportunity by combining an introduction to civil engineering processes with emerging web-based technologies for an electronic classroom supplement. The electronic library uses case studies to provide students with illustrations of emerging civil engineering practices and regulatory compliance strategies.     

Educating Civil Engineering Professionals of Tomorrow

Engineering education is currently facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Engineering institutions are being called upon to educate the architectural, engineering, and construction (A/E/C) professionals of tomorrow by complementing their traditional engineering education with the transfusion of information technology and process automation concepts through the necessary reorganization of classes and academic curricula. This paper presents a framework for an interdisciplinary course sequence in civil engineering, project management, and information technology centered on the concepts of fully integrated and automated project processes (FIAPP). The described sequence enables students to benefit pedagogically from working in truly multidisciplinary teams, to enrich their educational experience by bringing real world projects to academic settings, and to teach them fundamental principles in integration and automation of project processes highlighting the value of such integrated project management systems (information management, planning, design, construction management, procurement, operations, and maintenance). Furthermore, the course sequence addresses deficiencies in current one-dimensional educational curricula and needs expressed by educators, students, and industry professionals. The paper presents experiences and knowledge gained from the aforementioned academic sequence on FIAPP and on the utilization of three-dimensional computer models and associated databases in the management of A/E/C processes.     

Civil Engineering: Anachronism and Black Sheep

The paper presents a thesis that the word “civil” in “civil engineering” is anachronistic and does not represent the works of the so-called civil engineer. The origin and root of the words “engineer” and civil are traced. Engineer is seen to have its roots via the Greek and Latin in the Sanskrit word jan, meaning life, whereas civil is traced to the differentiation that engineers of the 18th and 19th centuries created from their military engineer counterparts. The word engineer was used as far back as the 14th century, though, much of it in nontechnical terms. The evolution of the practice of civil engineering, and the history of the formation of societies are studied to determine how tasks relate to the word civil. Of particular interest is to see what the practitioners and founders of societies aimed to embody in this field of civil engineering. The paper aims to explore the factors and influences in the practice and naming of the civil engineer. It delves into the roots and origins of the names of a number of engineering disciplines, giving explanations and commentary on the implications of those names, and finds that all those names relate to technical functions. The paper concludes that the name of civil engineering does not represent the functional tasks of the civil engineer, in contrast to names of other engineering disciplines, and is, moreover, out of place with modern times. What’s in a name? This paper seeks to find out.     

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.     

Managing Computer-Aided Civil Engineering Design Services

Computer-aided engineering (CAE) technology is rapidly altering the design services delivery process. The implementation of this technology is affecting the management of design production as well as associated quality control activities. Many civil engineering managers do not recognize the organizational impact of this change. Among the numerous issues with which managers must deal in order to improve future company performance and maximize the benefit of CAE technology are: (1) the changing business environment; (2) the need to revise design production and quality control processes; (3) the identification of appropriate organizational structures; and (4) the effective management of human resources. Architect-engineering firms must develop a strategy to answer these questions if they are to remain competitive in the future. This paper suggests the basis for developing such a strategy.     

Training Faculty to Teach Civil Engineering

Adoption of ASCE’s Policy Statement 465 and subsequent discussion of the what, how, and who of teaching the body of knowledge (BOK) that will be required for professional civil engineering practice has heightened the need for continued improvement in civil engineering education. ASCE has explicitly said the role of educators and practitioners in teaching the body of knowledge is critical and has listed faculty-related success factors for teaching the BOK. A key success factor is statement 465’s call for faculty and practitioners to properly prepare to “effectively engage students in the learning process.” This paper considers this challenge and discusses an instructor training program that effectively prepares faculty and practitioners to actively engage students in the learning process as envisioned by Policy Statement 465. We will show quantifiable evidence of the positive results gained by using this instructor training program through student and instructor feedback. Additionally, alternative shorter courses based on this program of preparation are highlighted that may be attended by the faculty of multiple engineering programs and by practitioners.     

Embedding Leadership in Civil Engineering Education

Leadership is a key element in meeting the needs of the civil engineering profession in an era of heightened global competition. Consulting and construction executives intent on maintaining a competitive edge are calling upon educators to produce civil engineers capable of leading multidisciplinary teams, combining technical ingenuity with business acumen, and effectively communicating narrow engineering endeavors within a comprehensive social framework. Our industry is challenging undergraduate schools to broaden curricula beyond the intellectual endeavors of design and scientific inquiry to the greater domain of professional leadership. Many agree that formal leader development must be incorporated into engineering education programs to respond to the professional demands of practicing engineers; however, the means of achieving the objectives within tightly constrained curricula are debated. This paper explores the changing nature of civil engineering in a globally competitive environment, reviews the issues in realigning civil engineering education, identifies key leadership skills relevant to engineering, and proposes solutions for developing leaders at our undergraduate institutions.