Establishing New Graduate Competencies: Ensuring that Construction Management Curriculums are Delivering "Job-Ready" Employees

Since the establishment of Construction Management (CM) programs at the undergraduate level, curriculum has adapted to faculty visions of appropriate course content, construction industry expectations, accreditation requirements, as well as ever changing resources and constraints imposed by university administrations. Even CM programs that have had years of building solid foundations for successful careers in construction benefit from a periodic review of their curriculum. The CM program in the Department of Building Construction Management at Purdue University began such a curriculum review in 2010. The culmination of many influences over the last year necessitated the need for a formal review including aging faculty, economic pressure to increase delivery efficiencies, accreditation requirements, and a newly introduced university core curriculum. With this extensive list of influences to be incorporated while maintaining the same high level of success for the students and the employers who hire them, the faculty decided to reach out to the construction industry for guidance in how best to invest the limited resources available for preparing undergraduates to meet the challenges they will face in their careers. This paper discusses the process used to obtain industry input in establishing new undergraduate educational competencies for use in a major review of the CM curriculum