On November 17th & 18th I visited Penn State, my fifth sabbatical trip. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Chimay Anumba (department head) and Kevin Parfitt I interviewed 11 faculty and discussed this sabbatical topic with about five others at lunch on the 18th. As on my previous trips everyone was welcoming and helpful, making my visit both productive and enjoyable.
What did I learn?
- Big: 500 undergraduates plus graduates students; 18 full time faculty
- this is in keeping with Penn State - 44,000 (corrected 11/21/2008) students on this campus I was told
- Old: It was founded in 1910
- Independent: it's in it's own department in the college of engineering
- Proud: It claims (with much evidence to support it) that it is the "preeminent" AE program
- Forward looking: it has been working with BIM and sustainability for some years. It has identified "High Performance Buildings" as a focus area incorporating both of these topics.
Teaching Methods and Curriculum
- The undergraduate curriculum offers 4 tracks, covering all of the generally accepted AE sub-disciplines with students graduating in the following approximate percentages (corrected 11/21/2008):
| Structures | 35% |
| Construction Management | 35% |
| HVAC | 15% |
| Electrical/Lighting | 15% |
- The fifth year of the program allows considerable depth, including 4 semesters of architectural design.
- About 50% of the students pursue a bachelors+masters program - again made easy by the 5th year
- There is a strong emphasis on meeting the needs of industr
- A few faculty felt there was too much such emphasis
- The emphasis in design classes, particularly Senior Thesis (year-long), is on individual rather than team projects
- There are team projects in prior classes
- Students are explicitly required to demonstrate both depth in a discipline area and breadth by work in two other areas
- Design Teaching are primarily what I would call "studio" and "Modified Studio"
- In other classes there is a significant amount of hands-on lab work as well computer software.
- "Practitioner Instructor" faculty are an important resource to the department, bringing industry experience to the mix.
- The department is monitoring the Bachelor's + 30 goal of ASCE
- They feel that they meet the intent of the criteria already although there is concern about specific wording issues.
Issues
- BIM (Revit Architecture) has been part of the curriculum for about five years and is rapidly becoming the primary tool, with plans to expand to Revit Structural and MEP.
- Sustainability is at the heart of the department's mission statement and is incorporated into many of the classes
- Construction Management Faculty seem to be leading in the both the BIM and sustainability areas, though the HVAC and Lighting faculty have long been concerned about sustainability issues.(corrected 11/21/2008)
- The university reward (Tenure and Promotion) system concerns many of the faculty
- A number feel some variation (there was considerable variety) of the sense that what is important to industry and their graduates is not what is rewarded by the T&P system.
- Others felt that that the teaching loads prevented their pursing what was important to them and the reward system - research
- The department has good, cooperative relationships with both Civil Engineering and Architecture for both course offerings and some research projects.
Students
- Penn State is a highly selective program
with a capped enrollment of 100 students per year
- Students are admitted only after having achieved at least a 3.0 average in their first year at the university
- Their attrition rate from the program is negligible from 2nd through 5th year.
- The relative numbers of Structural, Mechanical and Electrical graduates are recognized not to match the job opportunities in industry.
- Since all their graduates receive multiple job offers this is not a high priority issue.
- The fall-semester Penn State Job Fair is the big hiring opportunity. The number of firms attending (166 this year) far outnumbers the students (~100)
- Firms have found that hiring interns from the fair is an excellent way to hire graduates ultimately.
- Professors value the internship experience of their students.
- NCAT and Tennessee State both participate in the Job Fair
- About 30% of the students are female.
Observations
- Few of the faculty expressed much interest in how other AE programs
operate or the Architectural Engineering Institute (AEI).
- Some expressed interest in arriving at a more specific definition of AE for accreditation purposes
- It's my belief that Penn State has much to offer other AE programs and that there might well be things they could learn beneficially as well.
- While the research efforts and graduate program are not the focus of my study, I'd note that both seem to be very healthy and well organized.
- As noted in the introduction, Penn State is a very proud institution that believes it is preeminent in AE education. Since I haven't visited all the AE programs yet I couldn't proclaim a "best", but everything I saw impressed me. I came away with definite ideas about how to improve my own program.
About my Sabbatical Project
- What Jay Pluckett had first suggested to me was reemphasized on this visit, that it's important to distinguish between four-year and five-year programs in any analysis. It's clear that the extra year offers many opportunities for increased depth and breadth.
- I'll also be looking at the difference between stand-alone and combined program departments (e.g. Civil + AE + xxx).
