The Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge is a body of knowledge, set forth in a proposal by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) entitled Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge for the 21st century. This proposal seeks to identify and implement improvements to the education and licensure process for civil engineers in the United States of America. The proposal is intended to increase occupational closure by increasing the requirements to become a licensed engineer. Some have identified this joint effort with the Raising the Bar as not necessary.
History Civil engineering as a profession has long studied and evaluated issues associated with educational preparation for the practice of its profession Lipinski, Martin E. "ASCE Policy 465: The Impact on Transportation Engineering Workforce Development." Institute of Transportation Engineers.ITE Journal, vol. 75, no. 12, 2005, pp. 24-27, ABI/INFORM Collection; ProQuest Central, and to that end, engineering societies have held conferences and prepared reports on the subject since 1918.
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (1918) The first systematic efforts to evaluate and improve engineering curricula began in 1907 when the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education or SPEE, presently the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). The Society invited several engineering societies, including the American Society of Civil Engineers to participate in a "Joint Committee on Engineering Education of the National Engineering Societies".Russell, Jeffrey S., Brewer Stouffer, and Stuart G. Walesh. "The first professional degree: A historic opportunity." Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice 126.2 (2000): 54-63. Accessed on November 12, 2017 at The committee's objective was to determine the appropriate scope of engineering education and the degree of cooperation required from the various engineering schools. Mann, Charles Riborg. A study of engineering education: prepared for the Joint committee on engineering education of the national engineering societies. No. 11. Merrymount Press, 1918. Accessed at Google books on November 12, 2017 In 1908, the committee initially invited the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the General Education Board to appoint delegates. Notwithstanding financial assistance from ASCE, the committee approached the Foundation to assume the project and fully fund a comprehensive report. Carnegie agreed and selected Charles R. Mann (1869-1942) Mann, Charles Riborg. (2009). In Marquis Who's Who (Ed.), Marquis who was who in America 1607-1984. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who LLC. professor of physics at the University of Chicago. to lead the effort to prepare the 1918 formal report. Mann recommended that knowledge and practice be equal parts of the engineering curriculum with principles of engineering distilled from practice and science and mechanics taught simultaneously. These concepts, first advanced in the early part of the 20th century, remain the "...general organization of most engineering education today." Foreshadowing the emergence of the total quality management initiative, Mann argued that "the ultimate success of any organization depends on ... the manner in which those in control coordinate and interrelate the intelligences and imaginations of men. Further, Mann claimed that engineering education was in need of "...a healthy dose of managerial and humanistic courses..."
Board of Investigation and Coordination (BIC) (1923-1929) Starting with Mann report recommendations, the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education or SPEE again organized a study on examining the results of efforts to standardize and otherwise increase the efficacy of engineering education conducted by a newly formed but temporary Board of Investigation and Coordination (BIC) supported by formal arrangements with over 150 colleges and universities, nearly every engineering institution of that time. Again, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching provided assistance along with support from the American Society of Civil Engineers and other engineering societies, the effort resulted in a seven year effort and final report- "Report of the investigation of Engineering Education (1923-1929)" Wickenden, William E. "Report of the investigation of engineering education, 1923–1929." vols. I and II, Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, Pittsburgh 1934 (1930). Accessed at Hathitrust on November 2017 .
The report dealt with two separate but very much related issues in engineering education; separate versus unified undergraduate/graduate education and the length of this engineering education. The report noted that a unified process implies in a 21st-century context is that the undergraduate and graduate engineering curriculums are complete and self-contained under the direction of a single engineering department. A divided education process implies that there is a distinct, pre-professional education stage such as that practiced by the medical, legal and dental professions The Board in 1930 found that the needs of the engineering profession was best served by allowing secondary school graduates to directly enter the engineering curriculum and this should be the norm of engineering education. This meant that unlike the unified approach to engineering education, medical, legal and dental education programs were divided and could only be entered after a distinct and separate, undergraduate education process not managed by the profession. As to the question of the appropriate length of the engineering curriculum, the Board recommended staying with the "usual distinction between undergraduate and graduate programs where the undergraduate degree was an accredited engineering degree of fours years as the normal length (unified process). This 1930 recommendation by the BIC became the standard discipline organization for civil engineering education in specially accredited institutions: the four-year bachelor's of science degree in civil engineering or BSCE with optional graduate school coursework for advanced skills and methods, the masters of science in civil engineering, or MSCE degree. The objective of the engineering curriculum was to integrate humanistic, scientific and technological studies into a coherent program of study which is different than a degree in science by virtue of "... a well-marked professional orientation".
The 1930 Board report also discussed the "normal path to progress" taken by engineering graduates. The Board observed that industry was less inclined to emphasize differences between engineering disciplines and more inclined to focus on the distinction between discipline activities such as design from management activities. The Board noted even in the 1920s, a clear trend where graduates would work on technical activities in the early part of their career and then work on increasing percentage of what was then termed administrative activity and implicitly by today's standards, management activity.
Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Accreditation and National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Licensing
While reforms were being made in civil engineering education, concerns were being expressed over licensing engineering practice over self-regulation by the Societies themselves. By 1910, the civil engineering society accepted and supported the concept of State licensure of engineering practice. In 1920, the National Council of State Boards of Engineering Examiner, currently known as the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) was organized to promote fair licensure for engineers in the United States, help enforce such licensure regulations. and determine and administer appropriate levels of experience and education for professional practice and still does in the current period. In 1932, working with other engineering societies and educators such as ASCE and ASEE, the Council organized the Engineers' Council for Professional Development or ECPD. As an audit of accomplishments, 1932-1947, and a rededication of plans for future action, this booklet is issued by the Engineers' council for professional development in commemoration of its fifteenth anniversary, June 1947 Science, Volume 94, Issue 2446, pp. 456: Engineers' Council for Professional Development Engineers' Council for Professional Development. (1957). The first five years of professional developmentEngineers' Council for Professional Development. (1948). The most desirable personal characteristics; an exploration of opinion and a report from the Sub-committee on Student Development Formal accreditation by the ECPD of engineering curricula began in 1936. ECPD grew and in 1980, changed its name to Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) and focus solely to accreditation of engineering education programs.
ASCE Education Conferences (1960-1995) ASCE conducted its first engineering education conference in 1960 at Ann Arbor, Michigan. The first of six conferences on this topic over the next 35 years.Smerdon, Ernest T., and Jeffrey S. Russell. "Two comprehensive US studies of engineering education reform." Proceedings of International Conference on Engineering Education–ICEE 2007. 2007. The conference attendees resolved the earlier BIC recommendation of four years as the curriculum norm be changed to a five-year undergraduate degree in civil engineering. A 1968 joint study between ASCE and ASEE resulted in a report entitled "Goals of Engineering Education" advocated for one more year of engineering education in the form of one year of graduate level coursework. Accreditation partner, ABET experimented with dual-level accreditation where basic programs were four years in length and advanced criteria for additional undergraduate coursework. Twenty-percent of ABET's civil engineering programs requested such dual-level accreditation. Despite the initial interest, the five year undergraduate programs had a difficult time competing against the four year programs for the same bachelor's degree of science in civil engineering and ABET dropped dual-accreditation by the mid-1980s.
Civil Engineering Education Conference (CEEC 95)