Civil Engineering Students' Viewpoints on Teaching, Learning, and Careers (original) (raw)
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An Open Letter to the Profession: Civil Engineering Education at a Crossroads
2009
I write this letter to my colleagues in academia and industry to promote a discussion concerning the direction that civil engineering education must choose for its foreseeable future. The challenge has been set for us by the ASCE Body of Knowledge and the National Academy of Engineering's Educating the Engineer of 2020 to establish a new definition of civil engineering education.
Student Perceptions of the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge
2012 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
The updated American Society of Civil Engineers' Body of Knowledge (BOK2) defines how educational and practical experience shall fulfill developmental requirements for entry into the civil engineering profession. As the BOK2 continues to be introduced into the profession, existing and potential civil engineering student perceptions are a particular subject of interest, one recently investigated by Angela Bielefeldt at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Potential students can use the BOK2 to learn about their chosen field of study, visualize a roadmap for future development, and better understand the dedication their profession requires. Graduating seniors can use the BOK2 to assess their personal development, their own strengths and weaknesses, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of their undergraduate engineering program. Student feedback can help leaders in higher education to make positive changes in their school's program in order to better prepare students for professional service. This study partially replicates Bielefeldt's 2010 investigation under different conditions (i.e. at a military academy as opposed to a research-oriented academic institution) in order to provide confirmation that the BOK2 framework is a useful tool for evaluating civil engineering curricula across a wide range of institutions. This study queried 42 seniors within a military academy's civil engineering program on their personal strengths and weaknesses in the context of the 24 BOK2 outcomes. In addition, students were asked to identify apparent curriculum weaknesses and rank order the 24 outcomes in terms of perceived importance. This study will be of interest to undergraduate civil engineering program administrators concerned with assessing pedagogy and industry representatives developing learning experiences, both of whom share a common goal to better prepare students for professional licensure. This study also assists practicing engineers to provide appropriate mentorship and engineering experience to further prepare engineer interns for eventual licensure as a professional engineer.
Ac 2012-3050: Student Perceptions of the Civil Engineer- Ing Body of Knowledge
2012
Brock Barry is a faculty member in the Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy. His primary teaching responsibilities are in the areas of engineering mechanics and soil mechanics. Barry holds a Ph.D. in engineering education from Purdue University. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and has 10-years of professional experience. Barry’s areas of research include applied professional ethics, identity development, non-verbal communication, and education policy.
Constructing a Civil Engineering Program from the Ground Up
This paper discusses the development and continuing refinement of the curriculum for the new Civil Engineering Program at the University of Minnesota Duluth. Included is a discussion of the program objectives, curriculum development, and integration of assessment into the curriculum.
Civil Engineering Education of the Future
… for Engineering Education: To Industry and …, 2008
This paper uses the latest Body of Knowledge (BOK2) specification from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) as inspiration for a substantially projectbased civil engineering curriculum. It demonstrates that a series of carefully chosen projects, combined with modules of learning materials, will meet the BOK2 guidelines. This approach also allows the productive use of online learning materials for new technical topics.
Civil Engineering: A Liberal Education Degree of the 21st Century
2019 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
received a Bachelor of Civil Engineering degree from the University of Dayton in 1974. He received the Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in civil engineering from the University of Houston. During his graduate study, Dr. Nelson specialized in structural engineering. He is a registered professional engineer in three states, a Chartered Engineer in the United Kingdom, and a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He is also a member of the American Society for Engineering Education and the SAFE Association. Prior to receiving his Ph.D. in 1983, Dr. Nelson worked as a design engineer in industry and taught as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston and Texas A&M University at Galveston. In industry he was primarily involved in design of floating and fixed structures for the offshore petroleum industry. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Nelson joined the civil engineering faculty at Texas A&M University. He joined the civil engineering faculty at Clemson University in 1989 as Program Director and founder of the Clemson University Graduate Engineering Programs at The Citadel and became Chair of Civil Engineering in 1998. In July 2002, Dr. Nelson joined the faculty at Western Michigan University as Chair of Civil and Construction Engineering. At Western Michigan he started the civil engineering undergraduate and graduate degree programs and also chaired the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Industrial Design. In summer 2005 he joined the faculty at The University of Texas at Tyler. At UT Tyler he was the founding chair of the Department of Civil Engineering and instituted the bachelor's and master's degree programs. In 2006 he became the Dean of Engineering and Computer Science. Dr. Nelson returned to Texas A&M University in 2016 as the Director of Special Academic Initiatives for the Texas A&M University System. Dr. Nelson's primary technical research interest is the behavior of structural systems. For almost 25 years he has been actively involved in evaluating the behavior of free-fall lifeboats and the development of analytical tools to predict that behavior. His research has formed the basis for many of the regulations of the International Maritime Organization for free-fall lifeboat performance. Since 1988, Dr. Nelson has served as a technical advisor to the United States Delegation to the International Maritime Organization, which is a United Nations Treaty Organization. In that capacity, he is a primary author of the international recommendation for testing free-fall lifeboats and many of the international regulations regarding the launch of free-fall lifeboats. He has authored many technical papers that have been presented in national and international forums and co-authored three textbooks. Dr. Nelson chaired a national committee of the American Society of Civil Engineers for curriculum redesign supporting the civil engineering body of knowledge. He is actively engaged in developing strategies for enhancing the STEM education pipeline in Texas and nationally, and has testified before the Texas Senate and House Higher Education Committees in that regard. He served on a committee of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to develop a statewide articulation compact for mechanical engineering and chaired the councils for developing articulation compacts in other engineering and science disciplines. He also served on the Texas State Board of Education committee preparing the standards for career and technical education.
The Civil Engineering Faculty Of The Future
2006 Annual Conference & Exposition Proceedings
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) has published the Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge (BOK) for the 21 st Century that attempts to define the knowledge, skills and attitudes required of a civil engineer. A section of that document addresses who should teach this body of knowledge. It concludes that civil engineering faculty must be scholars, effective teachers, practitioners, and role models. While true, there are a number of complex issues that arise such as whether it is possible for one person to possess all of these attributes, whether such a model best serves the projected trends in civil engineering education, and whether these needs are applicable to and can be enforced for non-traditional, non-university civil engineering programs. As a new committee (BOK-2) has formed to write the second edition of this document, the ASCE Committee on Faculty Development is revising the "who should teach" chapter for this effort. This paper discusses some key issues that are relevant to the civil engineering faculty of the future.
Integrated Civil Engineering Curriculum: Five-Year Review
Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, 2004
An integrated curriculum, which draws material from different areas to teach students about design and problem-solving, offers civil engineering educators an option for accommodating new topics without increasing the number of courses. Freshman engineering and the senior capstone course are two examples of integrated courses, and the writers present a 5-year perspective on an approach that extends the concept of integration to six additional courses, comprised of an 8-course, integrated civil engineering core curriculum. Drawing on their combined experiences with the courses and assessment in a review by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, the writers conclude that the curriculum offers a useful vehicle by which to add material to the 4-year program without increasing the number of credit hours, and offers flexible courses to meet goals of professional groups. The paper describes lessons learned, challenges that remain, and current approaches to improvement.