2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

From Need Assessment to Accreditation: Lessons Learned from Creating a New Construction Engineering Program

Presented at Construction Engineering Division (CONST) Technical Session 2

Launching a new college degree program is an arduous task that requires strategic planning, meticulous coordination, and careful implementation of the plans. Due to a growing demand for construction professionals, The Citadel department of Civil and Environmental Engineering launched a new BS in Construction Engineering program in 2018. The program was accredited by ABET in 2021, and has successfully produced more than fifty construction engineering graduates over the past three years. This paper presents lessons learned from creating the BS in construction engineering program at The Citadel. In particular, we discuss the opportunities and challenges related to development of curricular contents, preparation of course syllabi, adopting textbooks, assessment and accreditation, and industry relations for creating a construction engineering program. Seventeen new courses were created for the new program. The course maps of all ABET accredited construction programs in the US were reviewed, a database of skill sets required of construction engineers was established, and more than 100 related textbooks were evaluated to decide the course learning objectives and create the syllabi. A robust assessment scheme was created and used in documentation of the program’s success in meeting ABET’s standards of quality. The lessons learned include exploiting opportunities for cross-listing or cross-teaching construction engineering courses with civil and mechanical engineering, and project management programs, and identifying the need for new educational materials including textbooks for construction engineering programs.

Authors

Dr. Mostafa Batouli http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8092-4187 The Citadel [biography]

Dr. Mostafa Batouli is a founding faculty and Assistant Professor of Construction Engineering, and director of the STRIVES lab in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The Citadel. Dr. Batouli received his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Florida International University. Other than engineering education, Dr. Batouli also conducted research in the area of smart and resilient civil infrastructure and urban systems. He is particularly interested in studying human-infrastructure-environment interactions. His previous research has resulted in more than 30 referred journal and conference publications as well as three research reports.
Dr. Rebekah Burke, P.E. Pennsylvania State University [biography]

Dr. Rebekah Burke is an Assistant Professor of Construction Engineering at The Citadel. She received her Doctoral degree from Arizona State University. She was previously the Director of Sustainable Design for Clark Nexsen, Architecture and Engineering,
Dr. Ronald W. Welch The Citadel [biography]

Ron Welch (P.E.) received his B.S. degree in Engineering Mechanics from the United States Military Academy in 1982. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 1990 and 1999, respectively. He taught at The United States Military Academy during his 25 year military career. After retiring form the military he has taught at the University of Texas at Tyler and The Citadel, where he was the Dean of Engineering for 10 years.
Dr. Nahid Vesali, P.E. Pennsylvania State University [biography]

Dr. Nahid Vesali is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Leadership and Program Management (ELPM) in the School of Engineering (SOE) at The Citadel. She joined the program in Aug 2020. She teaches project management, technical planning

Download paper (974 KB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session