An Academic Consortium Approach To Construction Education

Construction education has gained a firm place in academic institutions over the last 50 years and is now maturing to the point of recognition of key sub sectors. Construction academic programs predominantly focus on general construction with some split along the lines of commercial, residential, industrial and civil. There has been a growing demand from industry over the last five years for programs recognizing specialty sectors, such as Electrical, Mechanical, Sheet Metal and Roofing. Major impediments to establishing specialty construction programs have been finding faculty qualified to develop and teach curriculum and finding room in existing curriculum for new programs. A unique solution was developed through the Academic Consortium Project of the Specialty Construction Institute. The vision was to bring together a consortium of established construction programs with shared interest in developing the specialty area to design, develop, and deliver a shared curriculum. This would allow working in established programs rather than building “from scratch”. It also would allow faculty without broad expertise in specialty areas to develop a new, focused expertise with help from the industry. Finally, it would incorporate emerging technology and a new academic interest on collaboration, not only among academic institutions, but with industry, as well, to develop the new academic programs. This paper introduces the shared curriculum concept and summarizes the academic consortium project. It then introduces the second-generation shared curriculum project, summarizing lessons learned and recognizing a renewed vision. For a detailed study of the shared curriculum project, see Normand.