While construction education continues to gain a foothold at the university level, it remains a discipline in search of its identity. At the 100-plus U.S. schools that offer four-year construction degrees, construction programs sometimes are tucked under the umbrellas of engineering or architecture departments that may seem unlikely. But change is at hand. Construction programs are evolving. Once considered primarily as training grounds for construction managers, programs have ventured into areas usually associated with engineering, such as research and continuing education. But even as construction programs develop, many still seek respect. "Most construction programs are treated as a stepchild," says
HOW TO USE THE TABLE NOTE: This table is not a ranking of civil engineering schools. It is an informational tool for students and others to use in learning more about and comparing these programs. Civil engineering (CE) programs within colleges and universities are grouped geographically by standard zones of the American Society of Civil Engineers and are listed alphabeticallly. West (Zone IV) = Calif., Ore., Wash., Idaho, Utah, Ariz., Nev., Mont., Alaska and Hawaii. Central (Zone III) = Wyo., Colo., N.M., Iowa, Kan., Minn., Mo., Neb., Texas, Okla., Wis., N.D., S.D. and Ill. Mid-Southeast (Zone II) = Ark., La.,
Civil engineering may not be the world's easiest college major and its graduates may not attain instant wealth or fame, but the thousands of students who now populate the nation's 227 CE schools and those who teach and mentor them share a commitment and enthusiasm that the statistics of ENR's first-ever survey of the discipline may not convey. Melissa R. Ernst breezed through high school, but her first year as a CE major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was another story. "I found myself in the midst of a lot of turmoil," she says. "The calculus here is really, really
Tampa Bay Water is reaching several significant milestones on a multiyear, multimillion-dollar program to develop, store, treat and transport new sources of potable water. A 66-million-gal-per-day surface water plant started production last month. After breaking ground in August, contractors are marshaling a large heavy equipment fleet to construct a 1,100-acre regional reservoir that will begin storing 15 billion gallons of water when complete in August 2004. A 25-mgd seawater desalination plant is near completion and is to begin production in November despite two bankruptcies on the design-build-operate team. To tie these components together and integrate them into the agency's existing
There was a time when steel erectors worried about the price of materials, when utility contractors debated the virtues of directional drilling versus cut-and-cover trenching and when demolition contractors complained about the costs and availability of disposal sites. But with a market downturn, economic uncertainty and talk of war, specialty contractors now are sounding like business school grads coming back for a refresher course in the art of management. For ENR's Top 600 Specialty Contractors, 2001 marked the last gasp of the industry's nine-year bull market. The Top 600 generated revenue of $53.94 billion, down 0.6% from the $54.26 billion
The double whammy of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and a cataclysmic stock market have made a ruin of the workers’ compensation market. Rising rates are expected to hit construction next year, and the numbers could be staggering. The storm clouds already are gathering, according to an annual report compiled exclusively for ENR by New York City-based insurance broker Marsh USA Inc. This year’s national survey of workers’ comp rates shows that the average premium for structural ironworkers per $100 of payroll increased 8.6% over the past year to $41.24. This follows a 4% increase in 2001. This year,
Gypsum wallboard prices are slowly recovering from a spectacular collapse that drove them from a record high in early 2000 down to 1996's price levels, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices fell 35% between a peak in February 2000 and a low point in June 2001, says BLS. Since then, prices have started to rebound and are 16% above last year's depressed level. But they have only returned to where they were in 1997. ENR's 20-city wallboard price peaked at $236 per thousand sq ft in the first quarter of 2000, after increasing 36% the previous year.
After a breakthrough year for wage hikes in 2001, construction workers have seen slightly lower increases during 2002. But rates still rose more than 4% for both union and open-shop workers, bettering most increases during the 1990s. ENR's 20-city average union wage, including fringe benefits, for 19 skilled crafts is up 3.8% over a year ago. This is down slightly from the 4% annual increase won by this group of workers last year. Building laborers saw a 4.1% increase this year, compared to a 4.5% hike in 2001. (Source: Bureau of Laobr Statistics) Wages increases for nonunion workers are also
The persistent gap between general building cost indexes and selling price indexes continues to indicate a very competitive market with steep discounting. During the third quarter, the general building indexes, which measure the input cost of labor and materials, jumped 1.1% as new wage settlements started to roll in. This was 0.1% less than 2001's third quarter increase. As a result, annual inflation held at 2.5%, about the same annual inflation rate measured by this group of indexes a year ago. On the other hand, inflation measured by contractor selling price indexes, which reflect the competitive conditions of the marketplace,
There comes a time in an economic cycle when things can go either way. The second half of 2002 may just be one of those times for construction. The pessimists have plenty of bad economic news to make their case, including a string of business scandals, a shaky stock market and rising oil prices, spurred even higher by the threat of war with Iraq. Yet the economy is hanging together and economists say the recovery is under way. "The recovery is coming along, although it will be the slowest first year of expansion in history," says David Wyss, chief economist
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