Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

ConE Program Update, Fall 2005

By Chuck Jahren, ConE Professor-in-Charge and W.A. Klinger Teaching Professor

We have lots of excitement in construction engineering to share with you.

We want to welcome our new department chair, Jim Alleman. He comes from Purdue University, which also has a strong construction engineering program. We are looking forward to doing our part in building a better department with him.

Thanks to our alumni for making the Erector Set such a success this year. The Erector Set is construction engineering's annual publication where alumni letters are published each summer. Twice as many alumni responded this year as last year.

New Faculty

Welcome, new faculty! We're glad you joined the family!

First, Amr Kandil joined us as a new permanent faculty member. He is a recent graduate from the University of Illinois who has three years of construction experience and interests in optimizing decisions in complicated situations such as deciding how to best approach a construction project when balancing time, cost, safety, environmental impacts, and the concerns of several stakeholders. Amr is teaching ConE 340 (Concrete and Steel Construction) and a graduate level project management course. Welcome, Amr!

Second, Kevin Behling moving to a permanent position in Purdue University’s Building Construction Program. Congratulations, Kevin!

Third, Brad Perkins (BS ConE 1997) started his career in education. He has expertise in mechanical construction and last worked as a mechanical designer for KJWW of Des Moines. Welcome, Brad!

Last but not least, Mark Federle, Chief Information Officer of The Weitz Company (and former Professor-in-Charge of Construction Engineering) and Doug Powell (BS ConE 1971), also of the Weitz Company, are team teaching this fall. Welcome to Mark and Doug!

Program Changes

Another item of interest to alumni is that we’re starting to offer distance education graduate classes, starting with topics in highway and heavy construction and continuing with broader topics such as preconstruction management, project management, and company management. See the accompanying article for more details.

Our students enjoyed the industry input in Construction Contract Documents (ConE 245) so much that we converted the course to a once a week, late afternoon, two-hour format so we could encourage faculty from the construction industry to participate. Steve Bell (BS ConE 1981), who has taught the course since 2001, is pursuing launching other projects in continuing education, leaving this position open.

Next spring we will want to continue having industry participation in this class when Brad Heemstra of Story Construction Company takes his turn working with this class. Thanks to all of our industry teachers for being a part of our program!

Student Chapters

The AGC Student Chapter won first place in the student chapter of the year contest. This is a great honor considering that there are over 100 such student chapters in the U.S. The Design-Build Institute Student Chapter started the year with a well-attended meeting and will send a delegation to the DBIA national convention in November. The Mechanical Contractors Association of America Student Chapter will continue to serve our students by organizing OSHA ten-hour safety courses as an extra-curricular activity.

Even though we’re already the largest construction engineering program in the U.S. (We have 325 students, the next largest is Purdue with 125!), we saw an increase in new enrollments by 20 percent this fall semester. Many of our new students will join our learning community which is in its second year of operation.

This program is designed to ease the transition from high school to the university by helping construction engineering students meet each other, identify their leaning styles, and become connected to their future profession. This activity is partially supported by an endowment created by employees of the Weitz Company.

We wish you well for your winter season and look forward to giving you our update with the spring newsletter!