Wisconsin Builder | An Elephant in the Room

Meeting the needs of the industry

By Michael S. Switzenbaum

Michael S. Switzenbaum is professor and chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He previously taught at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Clarkson University.

Construction is one of the largest industries in the United States. The latest government statistics show that more than 5 million people were involved in construction projects, representing more than $800 billion in project sites throughout the nation.

Considering those numbers, the need for well-educated construction managers exists with government agencies, private corporations, general contractors, specialty contractors, home-building firms, consulting firms, real-estate developers and construction-material suppliers.

The complexity and diversity of construction projects, government regulations and technological advancements have made it a challenge to manage construction projects. Further, the industry faces spiraling demands for more affordable, better quality and more sophisticated building systems. As a result, there is a growing need for effective construction managers with a comprehensive knowledge of construction, engineering and business.

Construction management is one of the areas of concentration within the undergraduate program in civil engineering at Marquette University. However, in recognition of the needs described above, our goal is to develop within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering a Construction Engineering Management Program that's accredited through the Engineering Accreditation Commission/Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

In addition to providing better-educated construction engineers, the CEM program will complement and strengthen our Civil Engineering Program. Civil-engineering students will have more construction management-related electives from which to choose. Those additional construction courses, in turn, make students familiar with the practical aspects of civil engineering, such as their roles and responsibilities as engineers, risk and risk management and cost and cost control.

Marquette University is located in the heart of Milwaukee, a city with a number of large construction companies. We can take advantage of the wealth of experienced engineers around us to enrich our program. For example, we already have a very close relationship with local contractors and use local construction professionals as guest speakers, adjunct instructors and sources of field trips for students.

We have confirmed the need for well-educated construction engineers in a survey we conducted in fall 2003 among construction-management firms throughout Wisconsin. Those who responded to the survey indicated that a formal CEM education or training was valuable (or would have been valuable) for their careers. They also pointed to an increased demand for construction-management graduates over the past five years and anticipated an increased demand for CEM graduates over the next five years both in general and in their firms.

Managing the people, construction processes, materials, equipment and financial assets as well as having a thorough understanding of environmental impact and safety issues require a highly educated construction professional. Because the construction industry is so broad, an interdisciplinary curriculum must contain a mix of technical, managerial, business and law courses to provide graduates with the essential skills to be successful in the industry.

Marquette University is well poised to support this type of curriculum. In addition, we are able to take advantage of the new Marquette University Core of Common Studies. The core is the program of courses in humanities, sciences and social sciences that gives a Marquette undergraduate education its Jesuit character, which is invaluable for the education of engineering professionals.

Construction-engineering management is an emerging field. In the past, construction projects were managed by technicians, but the situation has changed. Combine the complexity and diversity of construction projects with the fact that construction-management engineers can't be outsourced to overseas engineers, and it's clear that there is a big demand for CEM engineers.

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