Integrating Inclusivity and Sustainability in Civil Engineering Courses

摘要

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) at Rowan University received an NSF RED (Revolutionizing Engineering Departments) grant. A significant focus of this grant is to develop and integrate inclusive curriculum for core civil engineering courses. All core civil engineering courses at the sophomore and junior level are a part of this initiative. Courses included statics, solid mechanics, civil engineering systems, surveying, structural analyses, steel design, fluid mechanics, water resources engineering, material science, civil engineering materials, geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering, sustainable civil and environmental engineering and transportation engineering. The NSF RED initiative was integrated with our CEE goes Green efforts that were initiated in 2004. This initiative allowed the above mentioned courses to incorporate concepts and content on sustainability. Course content included strategies such as faculty training, presenting case studies, rewording course syllabi and problems, assigning team projects, developing extra credit projects. The success of this integration is measured via course evaluations, focus group responses and senior exit interviews. The early assessment data indicates that the strategies for revising course content is successful as the student responses are extremely positive for all courses across the border. Seventy five percent or more students responded favorably to the questions posed for the select courses except for statics, solid mechanics, civil engineering systems and transportation engineering. The courses for the structural engineering sequence (statics, solid mechanics, structural analyses, steel design and transportation engineering) indicated lower scores in comparison to the environmental and water resources engineering courses. The major challenge is to train adjunct or temporary faculty who teach select sections of the core courses when the need arises. Students in the junior year are subject to multiple surveys that leads to survey fatigue.