The aim of this paper is to describe the state of emergency construction planning for hurricane disaster relief and to present the results of a survey of emergency-management agencies. Most emergencymanagement agencies are organized to coordinate the efforts of other agencies rather than take action themselves. However, efforts need to be made to further strengthen the ties between emergency-management agencies at all levels of government. The survey revealed that very little effort had been made to document the planning process or to implement emergency construction planning. In fact, construction planning was almost nonexistent. The survey also concluded that most emergency-management personnel are well-trained and that problems are rarely due to the quality of effort provided but rather to the lack of planning information available.

Effective education depends on effective communication. In the past, it was necessary to structure engineering education around the available communication media, specifically the lecture and the textbook. Technology has added new communication media, most noticeably the computer. Further advances in communication technologies offer opportunities for changing engineering education in a way that will vastly improve our consumer and product—the entry-level engineer. Interactive multimedia (IMM) is a communication technology that can potentially replace the large-class lecture and textbook as the communication medium central to engineering education. The potential advantages and possible disadvantages of IMM are discussed. A multiparadigm strategy for packaging IMM is presented. Such a comprehensive strategy will be necessary if IMM is to reach its potential as a central element of engineering education.

Evaluation of multimedia-based engineering education should be a continual process from the planning phase, through the implementation, to the postimplementation phase, instead of the traditional end-of-course evaluation. Specification of prerequisites and objectives, development of measurement instruments, and strategy of implementation are some of the important items that should be evaluated in the planning stage to ensure maximum implementation success. Evaluation during the implementation phase ensures that unforeseen problems be corrected. Postimplementation evaluation should extend much beyond the end-of-course evaluation to evaluate important measures, such as retention rate. Some longitudinal evaluations of retention rate based on performance of students are suggested. Evaluation of the multimedia-based instruction on the course level and curriculum level are discussed and outlined. Use of value-added criteria to evaluate the success of multimedia-based instruction compared to the traditional text-lecture-laboratory-test paradigm is suggested.

The First Lunar Shelter Student Contest was held in Albuquerque, N.M., on February 28 and March 1, 1994, as part of the activities of the Space 94—Engineering, Construction, and Operations in Space Conference and Robotics for Challenging Environments Conference. The contest was initiated by the Space Education Initiative Subcommittee of the ASCE Aerospace Division to challenge students and increase their awareness of the role of civil engineers in space exploration. The contest consisted of off-loading, transporting, placing a scale-model lunar habitat telerobotically, and providing radiation protection for the habitat. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the educational value of such student contests and document the contest development, rules development, contest execution, results, and lessons learned. The contest was very successful in providing exciting and interesting educational experiences for civil engineering students. Recommendations for future contests are also included.

Any major project has an enormous economic, social, and community impact on the area in which it is implemented. These impacts can be exacerbated by delays, and can be negative if not addressed before, during, and after project implementation. The impact of the Channel Tunnel is addressed in this paper.

The dissolving of the bond between the individual and the fixed workplace, so long overdue, brings space use and organizational performance much closer. Space use can be managed. Space use relates directly to new management ideas that are being put into effect in Europe and Great Britain. The debate about the relationship between office design and productivity got stuck. Organizationally, productivity was measured in too primitive and Taylorist a way (what matters is group interaction). Physical design was examined too statically (what matters is the use of space through time). This will now change because clients and users can now: use space twice or three times as effectively; relate space use directly to organizational reengineering; and give their staff freedom in the use of time that is much more desirable than the best that had been on offer before (and then really only in Europe)—control over place. An exhilarating threefold offer that, even if designers don't understand it, clients can't refuse!

The current methodology to teach the design process to undergraduate engineering students emphasizes applications instead of conceptual understanding. Emphasis is not placed on either the recognition of the problem or the identification of alternative design options. Because of this lack of information, students are not able to fully recognize the importance of all phases of the design process. Our objective is to illustrate the use of a new educational method, the constructivist learning model (CLM), to show how the design process can be presented more effectively to undergraduate engineering students. The CLM approach to design includes the following five phases: engage, explore, expand, extend, and evaluate. Activities that illustrate each phase are presented. With specific examples, we will demonstrate how the CLM could be used to present the design process so that the students can discover it themselves, instead of being spoon-fed someone else's process. The CLM approach should increase student retention and creativity. The importance and evaluation of the CLM approach is discussed.

It is my contention that the idea of recruiting engineering faculty from business and industry needs to be seriously reexamined by our schools and colleges of engineering. Most engineering programs genuinely strive for excellence; however, they keep using the same old educational model on the assumption that it has worked in the past and will continue to work in the future. Inherent in this model is the apparent conviction that an excellent research institution will necessarily produce excellent engineering graduates. The corollary to that seems to be that an individual will not be a good teacher unless he or she is a good researcher. I firmly believe that there are a number of weaknesses in this archetype, and several of these are addressed in this paper. I also contend that faculty members recruited from business and industry will contribute significantly not only to the teaching mission of our engineering programs but to their research mission as well.

The National Rivers Authority (NRA) employs 8,000 people and anticipates spending £2 billion over the next four years protecting and improving the water environment in England and Wales. During this time the NRA will construct and maintain about £1 billion worth of flood defences as well as control discharges into the rivers and the sea and monitor the abstraction of water from rivers for people to drink and industry and farmers to use. The NRA protects fisheries, inland navigation channels, and recreation areas, and over the past four years has prosecuted 1,700 people and companies and obtained fines and costs of £4,000,000. The NRA is therefore both a regulator and a protector of the water environment as well as a major contributor to civil engineering works. It is in the enviable position of having a foot in both camps.

Many schools are being required to consider methods to assess the effectiveness of their programs. It has been suggested that student performance on the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination can serve as an assessment tool of engineering programs. A case study is presented, which documents the attempt by one institution to use the exam to assess engineering programs. When student pass rates were perceived to be unacceptably low, a total quality management (TQM) action team was formed to investigate how student performance might be improved. The team discovered that factors besides the knowledge of engineering fundamentals can significantly influence pass rates, the greatest of which appears to be a student's level of motivation to pass. Although these other factors are difficult to quantify, they must be addressed before the exam can be used effectively and fairly as an assessment tool of engineering programs.

Educating students in building science and civil engineering departments about professional practices has been recognized as an important issue. Information technology provides exciting possibilities for bringing project managers to classrooms electronically. In this paper, we describe the use of annotated still-image case studies in a senior undergraduate project-management class. A project manager, at a nine-story building site, discussed project-management problems with the students. Using a picturephone, the manager showed still images of the problem and talked to the students about the problem. The students were able to question him using another picturephone in the classroom. The effectiveness of this technology was determined using the four measures of “clear,”“useful,”“attractive,” and “challenging.” A questionnaire survey of the students showed that they found the case studies effective and preferred the ones delivered by the actual project manager. The students listed major benefits of the use of these case studies to be identifying project-management problems, reinforcing writing skills, and learning the need to communicate effectively.

Up until the early 1970s, most professional societies in engineering, including NSPE and ASCE, had ethical rules prohibiting competitive bidding. The U.S. Department of Justice alleged that these codes of ethics had as their purpose or effect the restriction of price competition among society members, which violated the Sherman Act. The case against NSPE went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued its decision in 1978. The Court held that these codes of ethics unfairly restrain trade by preventing customers from making price comparisons in the initial selection of an engineer, and impose the NSPE's views of the costs and benefits on the marketplace. ASCE continues to debate whether competitive bidding for professional services is ethical, which the U.S. Supreme Court says does not even comply with the law. ASCE should, in its ethical standards, strive for a code of conduct that exceeds the standard considered to be unlawful. Otherwise, ASCE will be put in the position of considering such a prohibition as ethical, but which the courts consider unlawful, meaning that ASCE's ethics do not even reach the level society places on all citizens.

For over 100 years studies have consistently recommended that the engineering curriculum should stress underlying principles and have a considerable range of cultural studies. In addition, today, some authorities believe that the development of critical thinking, communication, and leadership skills are vital for and must be developed in the engineering student. In this regard, the findings of this study suggest that students prefer the use of thought-provoking questions and discussion in the classroom. They also appreciate the opportunity for student input, like to be challenged by the subject matter, and enjoy group interaction. Undergraduates, in particular, perceive that working in groups is an excellent learning experience. They also believe that the development of communication skills will be a benefit for them in their future endeavors. Students, therefore, appear to have accepted that critical thinking, teamwork, and communication skills are important aspects of the curriculum.