Civil engineering curriculums culminate in capstone or senior design experiences, often considered a critical component to the academic training of the undergraduate population. Entities such as ASCE and ABET, along with other accrediting programs, university standards, departmental and college expectations present broad standards and requirements for capstone courses. The ASCE Body of Knowledge (BOK) recently identified capstone experiences as supporting the developing abilities for young civil engineers entering the profession in five distinct outcome areas. While some similarities exist across the U.S. and Canada undergraduate programs, many elements of the courses are still quite diverse allowing for very unique opportunities for students. Capstone course instructors are faced with the challenge of accommodating the expectations of governing bodies both internal and external to the home institution while creating a valuable learning experience, often dared to be dynamic or in other ways distinct to the university experience. While the variation is supported as the mechanism for students to choose the most appropriate program catered to their interests and ambitions, faculty members may struggle to identify the suitable expectations to define their program as successful. A survey of “biographical” information for civil engineering programs has been conducted to obtain data to capture the state of the art of civil engineering senior design course experiences at U.S. and Canadian institutes. Additionally, ASCE’s most recent Body of Knowledge identifies (5) BOK “Outcomes” associated directly with capstone experiences and the survey results identify the adaptability of current senior design courses to capture demonstrated abilities in these outcomes. Through capturing the standards of practice for a large population of programs and mapping those programs to the ASCE BOK outcomes, a baseline for defining a successful program should become evident .
Dr. Retherford is an alumna of the University of Nebraska, Omaha, and received her graduate degrees from Vanderbilt University. She currently teaches a variety of courses supporting the department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Tennessee. Among many structural engineering courses, Dr. Retherford also manages the Senior Design Project course for all undergraduate civil & environmental engineering seniors.
Beth Lin Hartmann is a teaching professor in construction engineering at Iowa State University. A retired U.S. Navy Civil Engineer Corps officer (O-5), she has taught a design-build capstone course for civil and construction engineering students, project management for civil engineers, engineering leadership courses, and the construction engineering learning community. Hartmann received her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture in 1989 from Iowa State University. She received her Master of Science and PhD in Civil Engineering with an emphasis in Construction Engineering and Management from Iowa State university in 1996 and 2016, respectively.
Dr. Al-Hammoud is a Faculty lecturer (Graduate Attributes) in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Al-Hammoud has a passion for teaching where she continuously seeks new technologies to involve students in their learning process. She is actively involved in the Ideas Clinic, a major experiential learning initiative at the University of Waterloo. She is also responsible for developing a process and assessing graduate attributes at the department to target areas for improvement in the curriculum. This resulted in several publications in this educational research areas.
Dr. Al-Hammoud won the "Ameet and Meena Chakma award for exceptional teaching by a student” in 2014 and the "Engineering Society Teaching Award" in 2016 and the "Outstanding Performance Award" in 2018 from University of Waterloo. Her students regard her as an innovative teacher who continuously introduces new ideas to the classroom that increases their engagement.
Dr. Hunt is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln
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