CEE New Millennium Colloquium
March 20-21, 2000
Wong Auditorium, Tang Center, MIT Building E51
Challenge: Civil Engineering Education 2000 and Beyond
JOHN M. NIEDZWECKI
Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University
Forward
This white paper is meant to compliment my power-point slide presentation for the session Education for the 21st Century on March 21, 2000, by providing a more detailed background and discussion. The power point slides are those originally prepared for the colloquium, while the written text that follows was prepared after the meeting from my notes used in making my presentation.
Introduction
There has been a great deal of concern over the quality of the civil engineering degree programs now that almost all the major departments have reduced the number of hours required to obtain a bachelors degree. This national trend is the result of many pressures including those of state legislature funding caps on the number of undergraduate degree hours, conformity with the top national engineering programs and concerns over the length of time required to fulfill the degree requirements. At Texas A&M University, the Department of Civil Engineering has reduced its bachelor degree requirements from 139 to 128 semester hours. This was coupled with university and college core course curriculum changes. However, this reduction in semester hour requirements has dramatically reduced the number of civil engineering elective course offerings and basically has resulted in a loss of both the breadth and depth of studies available to our undergraduate students. At this time the department industry advisory board is helping us to assess the impact on the quality of our students education and we are considering the addition of 6 hours for technical electives in civil engineering. In our Department many of our students work outside of the university to help pay for their tuition, fees and living expenses. We often kid about some of them taking a great deal of time, since several have mentioned the quality of life as their reason for taking longer to graduate. But in truth, over half of our students are working in jobs unrelated to their studies, in many cases 20-30 hours per week, while they are going to college. As a faculty we are concerned that this reduces the quality time that they need to direct towards their studies and that as a consequence their grades may not truly be reflective of their capabilities. Further, I would like to point out that the amount of technical material presented in each class has increased significantly in the last twenty years, and as a result many students simply want more time to better learn the material. This plus the fact that many of the students need to work during the school year results in them taking just slightly over five years on the average to complete a four year degree program.
Recent changes to our curriculum have been further complicated other changes as well. These include an apparent national decline in students pursuing engineering and civil engineering degrees, the concern by many who face accreditation under the new EC2000 criteria, and the American Society of Civil Engineering's decision to pursue the requirement that the Masters Degree be required for licensure as a Professional Engineer. The decline of enrollment at top private universities may be attributed in part to economics, i.e. the return on investment. More specifically when students and their parents consider the cost of tuition and expenses in getting a bachelors degree in comparison to starting salaries for Civil Engineers that are typically in the range of $37,000-$42,000, it is understandable that some university programs are experiencing a decline in their enrollments. To support this idea in part, I would like to point out that the enrollment at Texas A&M University in the Department of Civil Engineering has not changed appreciably in the last five years. Presently, the undergraduate enrollment is about 800+ students and the graduate population is about 300+ students. Based upon informal discussions with other Department Heads both within Texas and at several large out of state universities, it is hard to assess whether current enrollment levels will remain stable, decline or increase. However, the overall reduction in engineering student numbers across the country is a definite concern to all of us especially for our graduate programs that rely on a strong undergraduate enrollment in civil engineering in both public and private universities across the country.
The EC 2000 criterion for accreditation has been implemented and in many ways it is still in a shakedown phase where programs are just learning about how to fully utilize the freedom it affords to strengthen their programs. The criterion does allow for significant diversity amongst degree granting programs in the same specialty area while maintaining program quality. Once the engineering programs master the terminology and can clearly identify their constituencies, articulate mission statements, program objectives, outcomes and assessment methods, the uniqueness of various programs will begin to emerge is a very exciting manner. Even today all civil engineering programs, some being more traditional than others, are definitely not identical. While the differences are fairly obvious to well informed faculty, these differences are not really very clearly articulated in any documents for the general public. Another exciting aspect of this new accreditation criterion is the fact that the process requires regular self-evaluation and active participation of the faculty and the profession in monitoring the quality of the educational programs. This will be extremely important in the future when addressing program deficiencies and in introducing course content to reflect rapidly advancing technological change.
In very general terms, our educational programs in civil engineering are based upon a foundation of mathematics and science (primarily physical science not biological science), mechanics, hands-on laboratory experiments (becoming less and less), extra-curricula academic activities and at least one capstone design experience. In some cases this is complemented by a co-op or summer internship opportunity for the students. How each program interprets the content and emphasis provides uniqueness to the various civil engineering programs. There already exists significant differences to the educational programs accredited by ABET, as well as, varying degrees of commonality. As educators, we are generally aware of information about these differences at the major universities but more communication is needed just amongst civil engineering programs to better advise our students.
Issues Facing Faculty and Practitioners
In order to appreciate some of the major issues civil engineering academicians and practitioners face, one needs to step back form the details and take a broader perspective. For this discussion, the issues of interest are divided into two major categories. The first deals with the institutional framework in which change must be brought about and the second addresses perceptions about practitioners and some of the issues that they must face in supporting education, by a hopefully informed academician (me). The institutional issues encompass the vision and stated priorities of the university and the college of engineering, its mission, the constituency that it serves, and its competitive niche, resource base and endowments. As an example of such a document, at Texas A&M University, is a new report called Vision 20-20 has recently be released that was prepared under the direction of our president. This coupled together with the strategic plan of the college is typical of the framework within which a Department of Civil Engineering must operate to bring about change. The second category of issues presented identifies some of the issues pertinent to the civil engineering profession and it relation to and support of educational programs. These include perceptions about the profession, and its direction in a rapidly changing market place.
At the department level we must clearly define what we would like to achieve as a faculty, recognizing our strengths, as well as areas for opportunity and growth. Too often this is done without adequate participation or support of civil engineering practitioners. In the Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University, we are now in the process of completing our strategic vision that is consistent with the university and college goals, and most significantly has been critically reviewed by leading civil engineering practitioners in Texas. However, our aspirations for the future of our program are tempered by a realization of our projected resource base. Even with this there is plenty of room for innovation and growth. In brief we, as a faculty and a department, aspire to be one of the very best departments of civil engineering.
When we talk about the quality of our educational programs we are generally focusing upon the quality of our faculty and students, our facilities and the opportunities afforded our students to participate in activities involving competition and practitioners. Our faculty is continually challenged to improve their teaching skills and to improve the content of their courses throughout their careers as professors. In addition, they are expected to develop new knowledge through their research studies that is or will eventually be pertinent to the practice of civil engineering. But here is where often serious disconnects with practitioners occur and better communication is essential if improvements in the relevancy of the research are to occur. Of course we can all cite exceptions but I am talking about an overall closer relationship and a major paradigm change. I am not advocating doing away with basic research but rather a sharing of a vision about where our most capable faculty would like to develop technology to move the practice of civil engineering in the future. The profession of civil engineering has many exiting challenges before it and this needs to come though loud and clear to our current students, our future students, and the general public.
With regards to the civil engineering profession, there are a number of points to be made. First we should take pride in the wide range of successful civil engineering firms that are serving society. At the same time here in lies the dichotomy. Practitioners and educators for the most part have differing expectations for graduates entering the profession. It was not long ago that companies expected to train and develop the new generation of graduates over several years. Nowadays fierce competition has resulted in desire to have these engineers productive in the shortest time possible, translating into less in-house training. I believe that this has lead to a realignment of companies with the civil engineering programs that produce the most suitable graduates, meaning more traditional civil engineering backgrounds. Further, I believe that this has been a major force in reawakening the interest by the profession in educational issues. Students also recognize this and are reevaluating their options. They are actively pursing summer internships, rather that co-op programs, that allow them to gain an edge in the profession and graduate on time. Another trend is that companies are moving closer to rural campuses where a large number of engineering students are being educated. This is especially true in computer science and electrical engineering, however, with the globalization of the market and the possibilities of the web, some civil engineering firms are seriously considering this as well. I believe that this is a positive trend and will bring the students, the faculty and the companies closer together, and result in a better educational process, ultimately advancing the technical level profession.
Improving the Quality of Educational Programs
Almost all civil engineering programs are resource limited and the profession and its successful practitioners need to look more seriously at financially enabling the educational programs to address uniqueness, innovation and an increasingly diverse student population. Scholarships for tuition and books, internships that provide income throughout the year, and funds to allow the faculty to be innovative while partnering with practitioners are issues that very much need to be addressed by the civil engineering community.
All of us attending the colloquium, educator or practitioner share the common goal of improving the quality of the educational process and the skills of our students entering the profession of civil engineering. In order to achieve this there are challenges we must face together in order to see that the programs of study evolve. Beginning with the basic educational components for all our students, it is clear that we must broaden the science and technology base to recognize the increasing importance of biological systems, the role of information technology and the concerns over environmentally sustainable systems. At the university level we must encourage innovation, incorporate the latest teaching and learning methods, and the most effective technology utilization strategies for improving classroom and learning environments. Further, we must work to resolve evaluation metrics for our faculty and their contributions to the educational process, arrive at an optimal level of participation by the practitioners by the incorporating practitioners into the educational process, recognize and reward excellence and develop the financial base required to the support level of excellence we seek in the educational process. More fundamentally, we must reevaluate the time frame for delivering specific educational levels of excellence expected by the profession. Rewarding excellence in teaching is being reviewed in earnest at the university level with the intent to go beyond simple number counting. Guidelines for instructor and student portfolios, peer evaluation of teaching and components that include active learning techniques, teaming, innovation, excitement and reflection, within institutional units as well as external peer review are being developed for engineering assessment of teaching quality by the faculty.
Closing Remarks
Today, as civil engineering educators, we face what seems like an ever-increasing set of challenges and opportunities. With the EC 2000 criteria we have the opportunity to begin to distinguish our programs through thoughtful innovations that not only bring the excitement of the profession to our students but also truly brings outstanding practitioners in contact with our students as an integrated part of their education. I am most concerned about strengthening the quality of our product, i.e. our students, most of whom will enter the profession of civil engineering as practitioners. A much smaller number of our students with advanced degrees will enter academia to be the next generation of professors. With the many pressures to be more cost effective, we must go back to our constituency to develop a broad range of support as we redefine and revitalize our curriculum, and more importantly our vision of where we want to go as a profession. I personally have come to agree with ASCE's bold statement on where we must go to strengthen the profession. Whether or not that vision succeeds, changes will be made to revitalize civil engineering education. It will cause us to make our profession more accessible by reaching out to an increasingly diverse population and it will raise our expectations of ourselves to truly become the shapers and caretakers for the infrastructure of our cities and the nation. We must all work together with ASCE and the civil engineering practitioners, the professional registration boards and the legislators, as we reshape our academic programs and develop the financial resources needed to supplement our educational budgets to achieve our goals. In our case the addition of six additional hours will help but it will still not provide the level of excellence we seek for our graduates or the profession. Therefore, an additional year of studies devoted to raising the technical preparedness of our students to enter the profession is necessary if we are to raise the level of civil engineering practice and the public perception of our profession.
In closing let me summarize several key points for further discussion. In this time of change I believe that the academicians and the practitioners must recognize that they have a shared responsibility for the future of the profession. Not all course work can be applied nor can it be purely science, and we must rededicate ourselves to find the proper mix in our upper level undergraduate and graduate course offerings. For my colleagues at other institutions of higher learning who are in leadership positions, I encourage you to aggressively challenge your industry advisory councils to help revitalize your programs, to redefine the classroom and to develop new opportunities for involving your faculty and students in the practice of our civil and environmental engineering. In closing, I personally would like to see more forums similar to this MIT colloquium to discuss the future of our educational programs to be sponsored jointly by the department heads and practitioners.
Acknowledgements
I would personally like to thank both Drs. Rafael Bras and Frank Perkins
for their efforts in planning and directing this important colloquium and
to further recognize their dedication to improving the educational process
and hence the quality of the civil and environmental engineering profession.
I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to my dear friends Professors
Jerry Connor and Ignacio Rodriguez-Iturbe for the many discussions we have
shared over the years on civil engineering education, the practice of civil
engineering and its needed evolution. Finally, I would also like to thank
Professors Jose M. Roesset and James Yao, who more recently have been sharing
their thoughtful insights on the future of civil engineering education with
myself and our colleagues.