Reforming Civil Engineering Education Given the Challenges Related to Infrastructure Engineering and Management

In this paper, the authors review and evaluate some of the pressing specific problems that we face as a society and that have been traditionally entrusted to civil and environmental engineers. There is ample evidence that the state-of-the practice is not sufficiently qualified to address daunting problems related to the safe and efficient performance of infrastructures with the current approaches to feasibility analysis, financing, design, construction, operation, protection, inspection, maintenance and renewal. Especially, the concerns related to protecting infrastructures against hazards have been further emphasized in relation to homeland security. Properly educated and trained civil engineers are in fact essential as coordinators of multi-disciplinary teams responsible for addressing such large system of systems problems and integrators of related technology. The research and education strategy needs, and the need for new paradigms to help change the status quo of civil engineering education and research are discussed. A multidisciplinary research and education initiative that will be “field-centered, i.e. grounded on the reality of actual operating infrastructures, is formulated. Such an approach to civil engineering education and research is defended as essential to assure the graduates will be qualified to address our current problems with the engineering and management of infrastructure systems. INTRODUCTION: EDUCATION REFORM Since the 1990’s, a number of important summits, workshops, conferences and NSF initiatives focused on engineering education in general, civil and environmental engineering in particular (e.g. the 1985, 1990 and 1995 Civil Engineering Education Conferences organized by ASCE, the 1994 ASCE/NSF Workshop on Civil Engineering Education, the 1994 NSF Workshop on Restructuring Engineering Education, the 1995 NSF Workshop on Systemic Engineering Education Reform, the 1997 NSF Engineering Education Innovators’ Conference, 1999 ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, 2000 MIT Colloquium on the Future of Civil and Environmental Engineering (http://web.mit.edu/civenv/www/colloquium.html), amongst many others). In a thought-provoking trilogy “Engineering Education Reform: A Trilogy,” Splitt (2002) discusses “Environmentally Smart Engineering Education, The Challenge to Change, and, “Systemic Engineering Education Reform: A Grand Challenge.” In a subsequent paper, Splitt (2003) offers an overview of the seminal events since the late 1980’s that have resulted in the current consensus on the need for a new paradigm for engineering education. In his seminal paper (http://www.nae.edu/nae/bridgecom.nsf/weblinks/N AEW-4NHMKV?OpenDocument) “The Urgency of Engineering Education Reform,” Wulf (2001) describes the engineer: “Science is analytic it strives to understand nature, what is. Engineering is synthetic it strives to create what can be. My favorite operational definition of engineering is "design under constraint." Engineering is creating, designing what can be, but it is constrained by nature, by cost, by concerns of safety, reliability, environmental impact, manufacturability, maintainability, and many other...” Wulf further indicates “incorporating a set of new fundamentals into the engineering curriculum and encouraging faculty to practice their craft are among the steps needed to bring engineering education into the 21st century. Growing global competition and the subsequent restructuring of industry, the shift from defense to civilian work, the use of new materials and biological processes, and the explosion of information technology both as part of the process of engineering and as part of its product have dramatically and irreversibly changed how engineers work. If anything, the pace of this change is accelerating. Although there are exceptions, in general, engineering education has not kept up with this changing environment.......Most obviously; we need to focus on curriculum, pedagogy, and diversity... We need to question whether the B.S. should be the first professional degree. We need to scrutinize the current system of faculty rewards. We need to seriously consider the need for formalized lifelong learning, the adequacy of student preparation in grades K-12, and the importance of technological literacy in the general population.”