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.

According to C. L. Dym and P. Little, the complete design process includes identifying a need or problem, recognizing constraints, identifying and developing courses of action, testing potential courses of action, selecting optimum courses of action, preparing the documents required for the design, managing the overall process, communicating the design, construction, and testing. We have addressed these design considerations by linking design projects in our introductory physicochemical treatment processes course (EV401, taken by second-semester juniors) and our senior capstone design course (EV490, taken by second-semester seniors). The process developed and implemented addresses the integration of professional practice into design inexperience. We require our cadet students to communicate with their customers, an illustrator, and tradesmen, three forms of communication that are necessarily quite different from traditional student-professor exchanges. Also, students must design under constraints, this time not because of the closed nature of the project but rather because of “real world” resource constraints: time to complete the project, a limited budget to purchase materials and labor, availability of materials, ease of construction, and balancing competing projects (in other courses). The first attempt at implementing this engineering design learning model occurred during the spring of 2001 in EV401. Herein we assess the design and construction of one of two projects, oriented toward modification of a surface-water treatment plant model. Results suggest that iterative growth can occur and a more complete appreciation of the design process can result.

This paper examines the need for an interdisciplinary educational approach in environmental engineering and science, discusses the constituents of interdisciplinary environmental education, and addresses its advantages. A case of interdisciplinary environmental education within the Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Sciences Program at the American University of Beiurt is then presented. Specifically, this newly created program is introduced with a description of its structure, content, and performance in terms of mission accomplishment, student enrollment, and marketability of its graduates. Future curriculum development and constraints are also examined.

This paper describes an initiative to enthuse undergraduate Civil Engineering (CE) students in India about the profession. Various issues impacting CE students are addressed in a novel approach, the 2001 Summer Camp at IIT Kanpur. A select group of undergraduate students who had completed their second year of the Bachelors program in CE were chosen for the camp from different engineering colleges across the country. The objective of the camp was to provide an exposure to technology through motivation, personality development, fun-filled schedules, and excursions. For one month, through a series of activities, these students (1) interacted closely with the captains of CE industry in India to share their present concerns and future dreams in the CE profession and to understand expectations of the industry and society, (2) visited various sites with impressive engineering projects and some outstanding projects under construction, and (3) took part in diverse technical, nontechnical, and extracurricular activities, such as technical video shows, personality development workshop, debates, quizzes, sports, and entertainment. The camp proved to be an eye opener to all participants, the CE industry, and institutions imparting CE education. A questionnare administered at the end of the camp revealed that the perceptions of the students about the CE profession and their self-esteem underwent a positive change. The camp also helped bring the industry and academia in India onto a common platform.

Learning is a process of acquiring knowledge, and students may adopt different learning approaches to achieving their learning goals. While educationalists can draw up what they believe is a good construction curriculum for students, students’ learning would depend on their own learning approaches and attitudes. Acknowledging a lack of research on the learning attitudes of construction students, a matrix framework of learning approaches (MFLA) based on the relationships between three learning motives and three learning strategies is proposed in this paper. The MFLA enabled a major empirical survey to be carried out in Hong Kong to examine the learning characteristics of construction students. A questionnaire based on Biggs’s study process questionnaire was distributed to five groups of construction-related students in three universities in Hong Kong. The results of the survey indicate that seven of the nine hypothetical learning approaches exist in construction education in Hong Kong. The assortment of learning approaches used varied across the five student groups. As a result, different teaching and learning factors should be adopted by educators of construction students to meet the distinctive characteristics of students in various universities.

A project-based student Enterprise program was established at Michigan Technological University as part of an effort, funded by the National Science Foundation, related to reform of engineering education. The Enterprise program represents a separate degree track available in all departments of the College of Engineering. The Pavement Design, Construction, and Materials (Pavement) Enterprise was established in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in conjunction with the Thompson Scholars program. The Thompson Scholars program is an asphalt-paving-industry-supported scholarship program. The Pavement Enterprise is composed of a team of students that work in a businesslike setting on projects related to the asphalt paving industry. In addition to their project activities, students are required to participate in paid summer internships in associated industries and organizations. An Advisory Board composed of industry and government leaders meets three times a year to provide advice, guidance, and feedback to the students and associated faculty. The team project activities of the Pavement Enterprise prepares graduates for careers in the pavement engineering field with knowledge and skills well beyond their peers in the traditional civil engineering curriculum. These team projects incorporate “active learning” techniques into the program. The performance of the Pavement Enterprise is demonstrated using student attrition as well as a peer review. Lessons learned in the operation of the program are presented for those institutions considering a similar program.

On January 11, 2002, H.R. 2869, the Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act (the Act or Revitalization Act) was signed into law. This Act, which amends portions of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) seeks to promote the redevelopment of brownfield sites through federal funding and certain federal liability relief. Brownfields are parcels of real property that were once used for industrial or commercial use, the redevelopment of which is now complicated by hazardous waste contamination and constrained by associated uncertainty and liability. With a focus on the liability relief that the Act provides to prospective purchasers of brownfields, this paper explores remaining liabilities under state and federal laws and, in doing so, determines that remaining broad liability and a lack of finality will limit the success of the prospective purchaser’s liability limitations under the Act in furthering the redevelopment of brownfields. Three critical components for a successful brownfields revitalization effort are highlighted, and a three-part solution is proposed.

Resources are the cornerstone of all construction performance. An important measure of those resources is their productivity, which can be affected by many factors. Where productivity is reduced due to circumstances beyond the contractor’s control, a claim for loss of productivity often results. Although similar to other types of claims, loss of productivity claims pose unique challenges for the contractor who asserts them and the owner who defends against them. This paper discusses construction productivity, especially labor productivity, including its measurement, the methodologies for asserting and defending against loss of productivity claims, and recent judicial decisions addressing these claims.