Planning: iuse/PFE:red: uniting civil and construction engineering programs to train flexible experts

The Citadel received a $146,032 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Undergraduate Education under the STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076), awarded September 15, 2025, with completion targeted for August 31, 2027. This planning award supports the development of integrated educational experiences that unite civil engineering and construction engineering degree programs to prepare students for the modern design-build paradigm that characterizes contemporary engineering practice. The institution will design evidence-based curricula and learning experiences that equip students with technical design skills, problem-solving proficiencies, and lifelong learning capabilities required to succeed in an integrated planning-design-build environment.

The project delivers enhanced educational components addressing foundational mathematics preparedness, essential problem-solving competencies, and high-impact learning experiences that develop specialty skills aligned with evolving industry demands. Through curriculum adaptation and program redesign of existing parallel degree offerings, the initiative aims to produce graduates with improved capacity to deliver innovative design and construction projects that meet market demands and support sustainable community development. This planning-phase funding enables The Citadel to establish the foundational framework for transforming undergraduate engineering education to reflect the collaborative, integrated approach that defines contemporary civil and construction engineering practice.

Abstract

Civil and construction engineers are leaders in delivering successful building, manufacturing, infrastructure and land development projects. Across the united states, civil engineering practice has witnessed considerable transformation, reflecting an integrated plan-design-build paradigm, enabled through comprehensive agreements and seamless collaboration among planning, engineering, design, construction and project management professionals. Engineers, construction industry specialists, and project managers all work together to provide communities and private sector owners with more reliable and sustainable completed projects that meet ever-increasing market demands and strengthen the fabric of flourishing communities. To prepare engineering students to meet these evolving career opportunities, this project will support educational experiences to develop design, technical, and lifelong learning skills, which will prepare students to practice under a design-build paradigm. Additional education components further support student success and development, including math preparedness and essential problem-solving proficiencies, along with an array of high-impact learning experiences that will help students develop lifelong learning proficiencies through mastery of specialty skills. Evidence based strategies and tactics will be used to adapt existing parallel degree programs in civil engineering and construction engineering to provide enhanced learning experiences and knowledge needed to meet increasing demands of the civil engineering profession. Collectively, project outcomes will produce graduates who are better prepared to deliver innovative design and construction projects that personify the high calling of the engineering profession, in fulfillment of the national science foundation, NSF 24-564, funding program improving undergraduate stem education by revolutionizing engineering departments for the purpose of professional formation of successfully equipped engineers pursuing civilian and military careers. The purpose of the project will be to leverage cognitive load theory (CLT) to scaffold educational experiences to develop design, technical, and lifelong learning skills, enabling graduates to enter civilian and military workforces with flexible expertise. Project goals will address the following strategic program advancements: 1) first-year foundational math preparedness for problem-solving, 2) lifelong learning for engineering disciplinary specialization, and 3) design-build integration between civil and construction engineering. Together, goals will support students in developing (and automating) the basic problem-solving processes, domain-specific routine expertise, and self-regulated learning skills that are prerequisites for flexible expertise. For goal 1, CLT principles will be used to develop a plan to transform math curriculum to address knowledge gaps through infusion of engineering applications, enabling students to create basic problem-solving schemata that can be transferred to engineering courses. For goal 2, sub-disciplinary course threads will be RE-imagined to scaffold technical mastery and progressive development of lifelong learning skills to support knowledge transfer between classes and into professional practice. For goal 3, a design-build curriculum sequence will be developed to provide students with authentic design-build challenges, which will provide opportunities to apply basic problem-solving schemata, domain-specific routine expertise, and self-regulation skills needed to integrate knowledge across sub-disciplinary domains ? Thereby building flexible expertise. Faculty will contribute to knowledge on how to leverage communities of practice (cops) to affect change. Cultivation of faculty cops build a foundation for evidence-based curriculum improvement. Products and outcomes generated by cops will provide guidance on how to leverage cognitive load theory to design math and engineering curricula to foster flexible expertise. Knowledge and application of CLT in curricular design is a scholarly innovation attracting broad academic interest, with potentially transformative results. Broader impacts will include faculty development related to CLT, creation of database documenting linkages between math skills and engineering course content, a repository of design-build student projects, and recommendations for an applications-based engineering math sequence that may be of interest across engineering disciplines and institutions, as lack of math preparedness is a widespread barrier to student persistence and performance. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.