Hudson Jackson

Strategies to infuse global perspectives and industrial collaboration in engineering education

The influence of a global economy and the speed of communications will require future engineers to have a diverse background and develop sensitivity to the needs of other cultures. Engineers must be able to function in this increasingly global market with adequate awareness of engineering needs and practices across cultures. Undergraduate engineering education must be structured to provide adequate balance between theory and practice, as well as industrial relevance and global perspectives in engineering. Current approaches to address this issue include the introduction of technical advisory boards, co-op experience, capstone projects, international exchange programs, and encouraging students to take non-technical courses in humanities, business and management. Creating partnerships with industry and other institutions is another key step that academic institutions have taken to expose students to engineering practice in a global context. Partnerships should be long-term and established at the local and global levels with input from practicing professional engineers. There are other approaches that could be used to generate interest and help develop activities that enable students to acquire the skills needed for global engineering practice. The authors suggest strategies that can be adopted by academic institutions to prepare engineers capable of addressing future global challenges.

Enhancing Students' Problem-Solving Skills Through Progressive Integration of Project-Based Learning

To adequately prepare students for engineering practice, innovative methods of teaching, learning and assessment are required to facilitate development of adequate problem-solving skills. Emphasis should be placed on facilitating higher levels of learning and developing a systematic approach to problem solving as this helps students make the connection between theory and practice. The authors discuss the problem solving approach implemented using project based learning and case studies in two upper level undergraduate civil engineering courses at the United States Coast Guard Academy. Assessment data indicate that students gained more confidence solving engineering problems and were engaged at a higher level of learning and understanding of engineering principles. Student performance on capstone projects was noticeably improved due to the problem-solving skills developed in earlier courses.

Work in progress — Assessing information literacy in civil engineering

Although information literacy is not specifically mentioned in the ABET outcomes, the development of these skills is essential to the achievement of several outcomes. Civil Engineering faculty at the United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) have developed performance indicators and assessment tools under existing ABET outcomes designed to develop and improve student information literacy skills. The link to ABET specific outcomes enables students to see the connection between information literacy and their ability to engage in lifelong learning, to follow contemporary issues, and to use modern information technology tools in their engineering work. The authors discuss steps taken at the USCGA to evaluate aspects of information literacy within the current assessment process in the Department of Civil Engineering.

Work in progress — Selection and execution of civil engineering capstone design projects at the United States Coast Guard Academy

In order to enable students to experience real life engineering problem solving, design, team work, project execution and management, civil engineering students at the United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) must complete a capstone project as a graduation requirement. To better prepare USCGA students for their unique future roles as civil engineers in the Coast Guard, most capstone projects involve working with Coast Guard officers and civilian engineers in the field on actual Coast Guard projects. Project selection criteria include funding for site visits, a mandatory design component, a reasonable project schedule, realistic stakeholder expectations and a good match with expertise of the faculty advisors. The capstone design teams are provided specific instructions to guide them through the execution of their capstone projects. The authors discuss the development and execution of successful capstone projects at the USCGA and provide strategies for meeting educational outcomes while ensuring projects are useful to the Coast Guard.

Developing civil engineering leaders at the United States Coast Guard Academy

Current ABET criteria expects the curricular content of engineering programs to include a general education component that is consistent with their objectives. This is usually accomplished by having students take non-technical courses in humanities and social science. The benefits of having engineering students take courses in humanities and social sciences cannot be overstated as these courses strongly promote personal, political (public policy) and professional leadership development. The United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) has been training engineers to serve as leaders in the Coast Guard and beyond for the past 100 years. The USCGAs Civil Engineering curriculum fosters leadership development through a breadth of required core courses in the humanities, science, engineering, mathematics, professional maritime studies, organizational behavior, management, leadership and law. This combination of core courses and non-academic activities including military and physical education training has been proven successful in providing students with opportunities to develop leadership and management skills required for engineering practice. The authors discuss the leadership approach used at USCGA that could be adopted by other academic institution as they strive to develop civil engineering leaders.

Addressing globalization in Civil Engineering at the United States Coast Guard Academy

The United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) graduates between twenty and forty officers each year with an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering. It is imperative that graduates of the program are prepared to serve as both officers and civil engineers in an increasingly global society. This paper summarizes current efforts and future opportunities to infuse global issues and cultural awareness into the curriculum. Initiatives are presented in the context of requirements to graduate students in four years with an ABET accredited civil engineering degree and ready to serve as officers in the United States Coast Guard. Among the ideas and initiatives discussed are international projects, use of global case studies and issues, leveraging experiences of international students and faculty, culture and language courses, participation in international conferences and societies, inclusion of guest speakers with international experience, and the pursuit of study abroad opportunities. With a greater infusion of global and cultural issues into the curriculum, Coast Guard civil engineering graduates will be better prepared to meet the challenges they will face as officers and practicing professional engineers in the twenty first century.

Infusing industry, community, and the Coast Guard into the Civil Engineering Program at the United States Coast Guard Academy

Educating Civil Engineers at the United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) presents its own unique challenges and opportunities. Given our dual mission to graduate civil engineers and officers for the United States Coast Guard, it is important that we infuse practices from industry into the Coast Guard Civil Engineering Program while ensuring that our graduates develop a sense of community and public service. In the Civil Engineering program at the USCGA, emphasis is placed on helping students make connections between theoretical fundamental principles and real engineering practice. It has been challenging to fit into our four year program of study the teaching of fundamental engineering principles, coverage of depth in four sub-fields of Civil Engineering, a large core curriculum required of all cadets, and an introduction to real-life engineering practice of industrial, community-based, and Coast Guard applications. To accomplish this, a strategy was adopted of infusing industrial and community relevance, and Coast Guard mission readiness into the curriculum through class assignments, field trips, guest speakers, capstone projects, community service, summer internships, and membership in professional organizations. Given this approach our graduates are able to most effectively serve the public as Civil Engineers, Coast Guard Officers, and community minded citizens.

The resilient Civil engineer with the changing global environment

As the world becomes more globally integrated and interdependent, college graduates must be prepared to meet the new challenges of globalization. Students should be made aware of their critical roles in society as the world economy becomes more globally integrated and increasingly exposed to new challenges, threats, opportunities for innovative solutions, and rewards. Engineering students in particular must understand the importance of leadership and creativity on the social, cultural, political and economic systems in the global economy. An approach that has been successfully used to infuse global perspectives into the Civil Engineering curriculum at the United States Coast Guard Academy is presented. The approach is based on four key pillars (technical, cultural, ethical and leadership) that are complimented with four professional skills competencies.

Progressive Integration of Design Process into Civil Engineering Curriculum

AbstractThe design process has been successfully infused in the civil engineering curriculum at an undergraduate institution through progressive and consistent integration of key design principles throughout the four years of education. This has been accomplished without adding new courses to the curriculum. Students are introduced to a problem-solving framework in the freshman year that is used as the basis of further instruction in the design process in subsequent courses. Several upper-level courses were structured to include project-enhanced, project-based learning and cooperative learning that promote learning at higher levels. Assessment data indicate that students are making progressive improvement in problem-solving abilities, performing better on senior capstone design projects, and show better preparedness to make the transition to practice engineering after graduation.

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF RIGID PAVEMENT BEHAVIOR TO NON-DESTUCTIVE IMPULSE RESPONSE TESTING

The Impulse Response (IR) technique is a stress wave method that measures the structure’s response to stress waves generated by an impact source. When applied to rigid pavements, the measured response contains complex information on the dynamic pavement properties that is primarily used in detection of voids or loss of support, and softening of the subgrade. The dynamic response of the pavement system is assumed to be similar to that of a single degree of freedom (SDOF) system. This assumption is useful for practical purposes but introduces inconsistencies and uncertainties in the data interpretation because it oversimplifies a complex dynamic problem. Results of a Finite Element parametric study analysis conducted to identify key factors that influence rigid pavement response during Impulse Response (IR) testing are presented. A dynamic modal analysis of a multilayer rigid pavement, assuming viscoelastic and elastic linear material properties, indicates that the mobility spectra from IR testing is predominantly influenced by the properties of the surface layer and the subgrade. The presence of voids beneath a rigid pavement results in increased mobility and less damped behavior of the pavement. The validity of the SDOF assumption in void detection in the reduction of field IR data is also examined.