Military Leaders and Civil Engineers—An Air Force Academy Challenge

A major challenge facing the civil engineering faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy is how to provide a rigorous, ABET‐accredited civil engineering program within the constraints of a national military academy. This paper compares the academy civil engineering curriculum with those at other respected institutions, and summarizes many of the programs, some unique to the academy and some not, which are employed to address the challenge. These programs include management of the curriculum by tracks, an intensive teacher training program, peer and student evaluations, former faculty inputs, interdisciplinary cooperative teaching, and conscious linkage between courses. Using these and other programs, we attempt to achieve our goal of producing the world's best second lieutenants, who are also civil engineers.