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Session 3115

An Assessment of How the Sooner City Project Addresses ASCE's Body of Knowledge

R.L. Kolar, R.C. Knox, G.A. Miller, K.K. Muraleetharan, and D.A. Sabatini

School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science (CEES) University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019

Abstract.

ASCE's Policy Statement 465 (PS 465), the result of a decade-long process, outlines the Body of Knowledge (BOK) that students should possess in order to enter the practice of civil engineering. Similar to ABET's EC 2000, PS 465 advocates an outcomes-based assessment by promoting 15 outcomes, 11 of which duplicate the ABET criteria; the four new ones promote greater technical depth and breadth. This initiative is in response to the increasingly complex and broad civil engi- neering projects of the 21st century.

Since 1996, civil engineering at the University of Oklahoma has also been undertaking a curric- ulum reform project, Sooner City, for many of the same reasons, i.e., to promote outcomes not normally addressed in traditional civil engineering curricula, such as leadership, design, commu- nication, and critical thinking. Basically, the Sooner City theme unifies the traditional civil engi- neering curriculum by threading a common design project, civil infrastructure, throughout the curriculum, beginning in the freshman year. To the extent possible, the student learning is project- driven and delivered “just-in-time.”

At a workshop in 2004, representatives from the OU faculty and ASCE PS 465 met to assess the extent to which a Sooner City-based curriculum meets BOK outcomes, as well as how Sooner City could be modified to meet more of the BOK outcomes within the confines of the undergraduate degree program. This manuscript, solicited by Stu Walesh for “The Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge Where Are We Today?” session, presents the results of that workshop, which has implications for other schools who use the Sooner City approach to address PS 465.

1. Background of Sooner City.

Basically, Sooner City is a comprehensive, integrated, infrastructure design project that is threaded throughout the University of Oklahoma (OU) civil engineering curriculum, beginning in the freshman year. Freshmen are given a plat of partially developed land that, by the time they grad- uate, is turned into a blueprint for Sooner City’s infrastructure (26). Among other things, the project promotes five outcomes not fully addressed by traditional curricula, but which are empha- sized by the NSF Engineering Education Coalitions and ABET 2000: team building, communica- tion, leadership, design, and higher level learning skills.

Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education

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Knox, R., & Muraleetharan, K., & Miller, G., & Sabatini, D., & Kolar, R. (2004, June), An Assessment Of How The Sooner City Project Addresses Asce's Body Of Knowledge Paper presented at 2004 Annual Conference, Salt Lake City, Utah. 10.18260/1-2--12935