Forum papers are thought-provoking opinion pieces or essays founded in fact, sometimes containing speculation, on a civil engineering topic of general interest and relevance to the readership of the journal. The views expressed in this Forum article do not necessarily reflect the views of ASCE or the Editorial Board of the journal.

The Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department at Rowan University is part of a growing and expanding college at Rowan University. The overwhelming majority of CEE students are white, male, and from middle class backgrounds, but previous efforts to increase diversity have been unsuccessful. In June 2016, the CEE Department was awarded a 5-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to promote diversity and inclusivity, and has just completed its first year of intensive efforts to accomplish this. Efforts focus on increasing the number of underserved students in the program, including women and underrepresented minorities, addressing both visible (race/ethnicity and sex/gender) and nonvisible elements of diversity (including students who identify as LGBTQ, students who are first-generation-to-college, students with disabilities, and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds) and promoting inclusivity through its curriculum, pedagogy, and climate. The paper presents results from (1) revisions to the admissions process; (2) a baseline survey of the climate for inclusivity perceived by students and faculty; (3) the development of a peer mentoring program; and (4) the development of inclusive pedagogy in sophomore and junior curriculum offerings.

This research evaluated factors that first-year engineering students took into consideration when deciding on their major. The study was done at a large, public, urban institution located in southeast United States. The purpose of the study was to get a better understanding of how students were using a first-year Introduction to Engineering course and seminars to help decide their major. The outcome of the research helped shape the introductory engineering first-year experience and maximize the usefulness of the course for students. There were two forms of data collection: survey responses were collected from almost 400 students, and 13 interviews were conducted to triangulate the quality of data. The quantitative data were analyzed using nonparametric statistical tests. The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis and compared with the survey results for a better understanding of students’ experiences. These analyses revealed that the most influential factors in deciding a major are job opportunities, potential for societal contributions, and personal interests. From these findings, it is recommended that first-year engineering courses place emphasis on the job opportunities and potential for societal contributions in all engineering majors.

College students in the US are facing increased levels of stress as they progress through their undergraduate programs. Although these trends are of concern within higher education, they are not likely to change as students pursuing construction-related careers enter into industry. However, resilience and the processes associated with its development have proven useful for both academic success and professional development. In this study, the authors capitalize on undergraduate education as a prominent site for resilience development. In particular, the contexts in which students experienced stress and employed tactics for stress management at a large land-grant university in the US were explored. Upon qualitatively analyzing 20 semistructured interviews with undergraduate students enrolled in building construction and related majors, the authors identified three contexts in and five tactics by which students experienced and managed stress during their undergraduate careers. These findings may inform academic and career advising and support practices to better aim students toward resilience development and career success.

Today the surveying profession is very different from what it was twenty years ago. Recent technological innovations, globalization, and global land-related challenges have allowed a wide range of advances in the surveying profession. The vision is to promote surveying practices that can enhance the quality of services in a variety of tracks in the land profession. According to the new adjacent professional areas and the needs of the labor market, academic courses for surveyors have to be adapted to meet the broader scope of the surveying profession and to supply highly qualified land professionals. This paper outlines the new challenges for the surveying profession and highlights the core skills, competencies, and knowledge that should be highly valued to produce competent experts. Furthermore, this paper suggests a common structure of a surveying curriculum to capture the new academic themes for better adaptation to the broader scope of the surveying profession.

Many universities are embracing service learning due to the demand by the current generation of students for these types of programs and the opportunity to provide experience with team-building, multidisciplinary work, and cross-cultural communication. In response to student interest, the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin developed a curriculum-based program, Projects with Underserved Communities (PUC), in which student teams select, design, and implement projects in rural low-income communities abroad. In contrast to conventional design courses, a design and build program like PUC involves complex team organization, interaction with many stakeholders, and careful selection of a project to optimize the chances of successful implementation. A new course was developed that focused on these issues. In this paper, a case study of PUC is discussed with particular emphasis on the elements of this first course. One team, which worked on a project in Guatemala, is discussed to illustrate how the learning materials are used. Lessons learned from the first 8 years of PUC are presented, as well as results of a participant survey on skills acquired.

Students’ choices of college major are an ongoing concern for university administrators as well as for college faculties. This study surveyed undergraduate students of architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) majors at a private university in Cambodia regarding the factors influencing their choices of major. Using structural equation modeling (SEM) made it possible to quantify the relationships between the factors identified as influencing students’ initial reasons for their choice of a particular major. In contrast to previous studies, the results of this study show that the people around the student were the most influential factor for incoming freshmen, while student attitudes, such as personal interests and high school performance, were found to be less significant. Students were significantly influenced by university-related factors, namely, university reputation and financial opportunities. Furthermore, the construction industry’s image in the country and the level of compensation offered in the field also influenced students’ choice of major (CoM). Early involvement of family members and mutual collaboration with high school career teams were further recommended for the right CoM. This study provides a clear picture of students’ attitudes toward the selection of their college major, which it is hoped will guide front-line players in determining students’ decisions to focus their attention on, and invest efforts in, their career choice.

In light of changing conceptions regarding the contemporary engineer, the focus of much recent engineering education research has been on how best to prepare engineering students for the challenges they will face as professionals. Part of this includes education in engineering ethics. The literature shows that in order to be efficacious, engineering ethics education should encourage students to engage personally with problem situations. Thus, as a way to create more-targeted, relatable teaching interventions, this study provides an overview of the ethical dilemmas that engineering students at the University of Cape Town faced during their vacation work. Findings were drawn from student essays about ethical dilemmas experienced by engineering students from various disciplines. The data showed that students engaged with three categories of ethical dilemmas according to the amount of agency that they enacted. Conclusions are that the South African engineering industry is fraught with ethical dilemmas and that both students and professionals need to be educated to recognize these and to respond ethically.