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The undergraduate Construction Management program in the College of Engineering and Technology at Western Carolina University is 124 credit hours in duration and is accredited by the American Council for Construction Education (ACCE). The program currently has 138 students enrolled as majors and emphasizes estimating and scheduling skills. The program includes a construction capstone project course which students complete in their last semester. This paper discusses the evolution of the Capstone course at Western Carolina University, the positive contributions of the course to the program, and lessons learned from past offerings. The capstone course serves many purposes for the Construction Management program and students. The course is a simulation of a general contracting construction project from obtaining work through the estimating, bidding, scheduling, and cash flow projections using plans and specifications provided by an Advisory Committee company. The learning objectives are to: 1. Develop managerial and ethical skills as they relate to an actual project. 2. Prepare complete detailed estimate and specification analysis. 3. Prepare complete detailed construction schedule. 4. Prepare construction contracts, project manuals and project administration documentation. 5. Develop work package and project start-up procedures. 6. Understand and utilize construction resources & databases. 7. Prepare and deliver a professional presentation. 8. Provide an independent assessment of individual student skills and knowledge. A project binder is completed by each student during the last week of the semester which provides a summary of their work for grading. In addition to the educational objectives of the course, there are other, non-curriculum goals. All Advisory Committee members are invited to the final group presentations. Advisory companies are interested in recruiting the best students. The presentations provide an opportunity for these companies to scout the graduating class for potential hires. In turn, students often obtain jobs, a win for both parties. All capstone students are also required to sit for the American Institute of Constructors (AIC) Associate Constructor (AC) exam providing a benchmark for program assessment. Lastly, all Capstone students are provided exit interview forms which provide additional program assessment data plus potential alumni information. Background Western Carolina University (WCU) is located in western North Carolina near the border with Tennessee. The campus is in a rural, mountain setting. Outdoor activities are a favorite pastime of many students who attend WCU. Currently a little more than 10,000 students are enrolled at the University. The Construction Management (CM) program is housed in the College of Engineering and Technology. The program currently has 138 students enrolled as majors and emphasizes estimating and scheduling skills. Twenty-five to thirty students graduate from the program annually. The program is a relatively young one, started in 2001. The CM program is 124 credits hours in duration and is accredited by the American Council for Construction P ge 26264.2 Education (ACCE). Senior students enroll in the Construction Capstone course, CM-452, in their last semester before graduation. In a time of governmental spending cuts, technology program administrators need to synergize their efforts to serve several purposes. The capstone course at WCU provides for student learning, student employment and program assessment. The literature contains a multitude of articles about technology capstone courses, specifically student learning, employer involvement, outcomes and assessment. Purdue recently included team formation activities and practitioner participation in their civil engineering capstone courses (Barry, Drnevich, Irfanoglu and Bullock, 2012). Green design and sustainability are also mentioned in the literature (Wolcott, Brown, King, Barnstone, Beyreuther and Olsen, 2011). The current WCU capstone does not provide specific sustainability and green building assignments but will need to include sustainability as it is one of the 20 new ACCE learning objectives. Learning outcomes development (Thambyah, 2011) and best practices (Dougherty and Parfitt, 2013) are other areas recently reported in the literature. The Capstone course in the CM program at Western has been a part of the program for many years, and for many years was stagnant. The same project was used for several semesters continuously. Students often worked little on their project until the last weeks of the semester because assignments were all due at the end of the semester. A strategic integration of the course into the assessment process was not done. Advisory Committee members were not routinely involved with students and the program. The following sections describe the evolution of the course, and demonstrates the need to continuously improve delivered programming. Discussion The current capstone course is a simulation of one general contracting construction company project from obtaining work through the estimating, bidding, scheduling, and projecting cash flow functions associated with a typical commercial construction project using plans and specifications provided by an Advisory Committee company. All students work on one assigned building project individually. The learning objectives of the Capstone course are to: 1. Develop managerial and ethical skills as they relate to an actual project. 2. Prepare complete detailed estimate and specification analysis. 3. Prepare complete detailed construction schedule. 4. Prepare construction contracts, project manuals and project administration documentation. 5. Develop work package and project start-up procedures. 6. Understand and utilize construction resources & databases. 7. Prepare and deliver a professional presentation. 8. Provide an independent assessment of individual student skills and knowledge. Student course evaluations have been used to adjust various aspects of the course to ensure learning objectives are met each semester. For instance, in one semester, construction plans were provided to students in an electronic format (.PDFs) instead of traditional paper plans. Course surveys indicated that electronic format only was unaccepted, and that paper plans would better assist successful completion of estimating assignments. P ge 26264.3 A project binder describing the chosen project is completed by each student during the last week of the semester which provides a summary of their work for grading. A course schedule is shown in the Appendix. All weekly assignments are added to the students’ project binders. Grading is completed as the assignments are submitted by students, so that student progress may be monitored by the course instructor. In addition to the educational objectives of the course, there are other, non-curriculum goals. All Advisory Committee members are invited to the final group presentations. Advisory companies are interested in recruiting the best students. The presentations provide an opportunity for these companies to scout the graduating class for potential hires. In turn, students often obtain jobs, a win for both parties. All Capstone students are also required to sit for the American Institute of Constructors (AIC) level 1 Associate Constructor (AC) exam providing a benchmark for program assessment. Lastly, all Capstone students are provided exit interview forms which provide additional program assessment data plus potential alumni information. The capstone project has been developed, revised and modified over the years. Faculty and program administration turnover resulted in an inconsistently administered, but generally effective end of program course. Initially the course was more oriented to project management and presentation skills. After benchmarking several Associated Schools of Construction (ASC) programs, the faculty decided to include estimating and scheduling assignments and eventually to include AC exam materials. Most recently, Advisory Committee members have been asked to provide projects for the course, and to participate in the student final proposal presentations to enhance the experience for students by acting as potential customers for the subject project. Accreditation The CM program is accredited by the ACCE. Re-accreditation was achieved during 2014. The capstone course has been used to close the loop in assessment for the program through a Senior Exit Survey of capstone students in addition to the end of course survey. The Senior Exit Survey measures the perception of each student of the degree to which program learning objectives had been met. The same survey was used for five years, and the measured student perceptions suggested program objectives were met. The survey will require revision to adopt the new ACCE accreditation program outcome criteria: “Upon graduation from an accredited ACCE Bachelor Degree program, a graduate shall be able to: 1. Create written communications appropriate to the construction discipline. 2. Create oral presentations appropriate to the construction discipline. 3. Create a construction project safety plan. 4. Create construction project cost estimates. 5. Create construction project schedules. 6. Analyze professional decisions based on ethical principles. 7. Analyze construction documents for planning and management of construction processes. 8. Analyze methods, materials, and equipment used to construct projects. 9. Apply construction management skills as a member of a multi-disciplinary team. 10. Apply electronic-based technology to manage the construction process. 11. Apply basic surveying techniques for construction layout and control. P ge 26264.4 12. Understand different methods of project delivery and the roles and responsibilities of all constituencies involved in the design and construction process. 13. Understand construction risk management. 14. Und

Project-Based Capstone Course in an Undergraduate Construction Management Program