- ASC Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference
- Brigham Young University - Provo, Utah
- April 8 - 10, 2004
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Enhancing High School Programs For Responsiveness To Students With Construction Career Interests
The construction industry demands professionals who are highly skilled in planning, organizing, monitoring executing, and controlling projects. Many youth do not consider a construction career because they are unaware of the opportunities, the value of their inherent skills, and the possibility of career and personal fulfillment. This paper proposes to enhance high school programs to be more responsive to students interested in construction careers, and thereby attract a greater number of highly qualified youth. This enhancement includes four distinct areas including the incorporation of construction related content into basic-skills classes, substituting on-the-job training as an alternative to classrooms, incorporating personal development workshops, and increasing collaboration with college programs to allow high school graduates to bypass selected courses. If high school and early-college programs are redeveloped as described, both students and the construction industry will benefit. Students with construction interests will have a more effective high school education with a better understanding of, and greater motivation for, construction careers. The industry will have a larger base of highly qualified and motivated students from which to recruit. The first step in the process is to remove the stigma attached to entering the construction field, by reinforcing the positive attributes.
Key Words: Enhancing Education, Construction Careers, Recruiting, Workforce, Classroom Alternatives
Responding To the Largest Industry
The construction industry is a vast engine of commerce, and a large employer of a wide range of people. In the late 1990’s the world spent about $3.22 trillion on construction. In that same timeframe, the International Monetary Fund estimates that total, global gross domestic product of all nations added up to $32 trillion. This indicates that construction accounts for approximately 10% of the world’s economy (Western Carolina University). In 1999, construction spending in the United States was over $600 billion accounting for approximately 9% of the American gross domestic product (Western Carolina University).
The dollar figures that represent the construction industry are large, and those numbers are indicative of the people required to execute this commerce. Translating $600 billion worth of spending into highways, hospitals, factories, and all of the components in today’s built-environment requires people. In fact, it requires many people with many different skills to plan, organize, monitor, execute, and evaluate the work that completes all of this construction activity. Of the 116 million workers in the United States, just over 6 million of them are directly involved in the construction industry. This means over 5% of all U.S. workers are in the construction industry. Many work for one of the approximately 1.9 million U.S. construction companies, while1.6 million of these workers are self-employed (Western Carolina University).
Over the next ten years, responding to the personnel demands of the construction industry will create a challenge. The United States will need to replace 360,000 bridges as part of $360 billion spent on roadway construction, repair or renovate one out of three schools at a cost of $60 billion, and create $72 billion worth of mass transit systems (Western Carolina University). The people who are willing and capable of responding to this demand will be both challenged and rewarded. However it is not clear they will be available. College programs for construction education is relatively new and was initially documented in mainstream industry publications approximately 20 years ago (Engineering News Record 10/29/01). Since then, college programs have continued to develop and grow with recent surveys showing nearly 100 colleges with construction programs (Engineering News Record 10/29/01). Even with this growth of college programs, the overall capacity to educate construction professionals remains limited. More importantly however, is the inability to attract the brightest students into these programs.
Construction demands a mix of talented professionals who have numerous and varied skills that are necessary to plan, organize, monitor, execute, and control a project. As construction becomes more dependant on high-technology tools and techniques, this will become even more important. Construction firms need a diverse mix of people with good interpersonal, supervisory, and communication skills. Many talented youth with these very skills do not even consider a construction career because they are unaware of the opportunities, unaware of the value of the skills they possess, which are important in construction, and unaware of the career fulfillment they would experience by entering the construction field.
In this author’s opinion, students in their high school years are not frequently exposed to the advantages of construction careers and the nation’s construction schools have a challenge to attract, engage, and retain these students (Engineering News Record 10/21/02). There are a number of factors that work against the connection of students and construction industry jobs and careers. At one end of the spectrum are the significant number of high school students who will not continue their education at the college level. This includes those youth who may typically be categorized as at-risk students, perhaps because of academic non-performance or classroom disruption (Caballero, Mitrani, Roig; 1998). At the other end of the spectrum are those planning on four-year college curriculums. Many of these students may not connect their individual interests in technology, finance, or business management, for example, with the needs of a modern construction company. In addition, their perceived lack of manual or mechanical skills may further alienate them from considering construction.
There are statistical trends which support an urgent need for enhancing high school programs and improving student interest and response to the construction industry. Survey responses from 117 civil/construction engineering colleges in 2002 revealed that 64 schools had enrollment drops greater than 1% over the last five years (ENR 10/21/02). A consulting company department head reflected on the attraction of high school students to the industry by saying, “it does not appear to be the thing attracting hordes, or even mini-hordes, of the best and brightest”. Many students, parents, and high school educators associate construction education with vocational training. At the University of Cincinnati’s construction program, Department Chairman Ben O. Uwakweh confirms this sentiment by saying, “Most construction programs have to prove that they are indeed a viable professional discipline” (ENR 10/29/01). M. Lee Miles, director of the University of Arkansas Construction Management Program agrees saying, “Many do not recognize the value of the four-year degreed construction graduate”.
The fact that college construction programs are failing to attract the best high school students sends a clear message to the industry. Today’s high school programs must be enhanced to remove the negative stigma attached to the construction field. This need for enhancement represents the industry’s moment-of-truth, and if the challenge of enhancing high school programs can be met, both students and the construction industry will benefit. Students with construction interests, as well as those with latent interests, which can be ignited with proper stimulation, will receive a more effective high school education, which includes a better understanding of construction careers.
High school youth today complete a schooling program which offers limited orientation, customization, or academic preparation regarding construction related careers. New, 21st century models are needed which can deliver construction-oriented education through increased curriculum-flexibility and industry involvement, integrating classroom study with on-site construction-academy internships, and increasing student exposure to personal development and achievement activities (Gatto 33).
It is possible to enhance high school programs to be more responsive to the needs of students interested in construction related careers. It is possible to move from merely processing students through a schooling program, to providing an education that will allow students to more fully understand what construction offers as well as what they could contribute to the industry. This would effectively support a key construction industry goal of attracting a greater number of highly qualified, motivated students into the construction field. In addition, the youth will be better prepared for continuing their education in construction related college programs.
There are four distinct areas where current schooling programs could be enhanced to be more responsive to students with construction career interests. The first is the incorporation of construction related content into basic-skills classes including composition, reading, math, and science. Secondly, an enhanced program could use a significant amount of on-the-job training-centers, internships, or work-study programs as alternative instructional approaches to traditional classroom settings. A third area of enhancement could incorporate orientation workshops which introduce personal-development concepts such as confidence building, interpersonal social skills, supervisory leadership, and communication skills. A fourth area of high school program enhancement could be a higher level of collaboration with college programs which allow these well prepared high school graduates to bypass selected orientation course work.
High schools throughout the United States are experiencing conditions which make the coming decade a promising time for implementing these enhancements. All schools are formulating plans to carry out the Bush administration’s “no child left behind” policy. Budget issues will provide a stronger catalyst to link with industry and the potential financial support such linkage provides. These forces, along with the growing construction needs of U.S. infrastructure, should encourage education enhancements, as described in the following sections, to be driven into the current schooling programs.
A program which brings these four, distinct high school enhancement areas together in a coordinated, ongoing manner during a high school timeframe is the challenge. Activities in each one of these areas occur in fragmented locations as documented by the examples in following sections of this paper. Individually, these activities deliver positive benefits in many cases and could continue to be implemented and expanded. If the construction industry could drive greater acceptance and delivery of these activities, and then consistently integrate them together into a long-term program as proposed by the authors, the results could be a powerful 1 + 1 = 3 formula where the sum is truly greater the collection of the parts.
High school reformers from around the United States are daring to be different. Along the way they are finding new ways to motivate high school students, and are actually inspiring them to reach levels once thought unattainable. In fact, the enhancing of traditional schooling programs is very clearly making the educational experience more responsive to the student’s needs. These programs are proving that tests are not the only way to judge a high school, or its students. Of the dozens of new models which strive to move from schooling to education, the “theme” model has emerged as successful. In these schools nearly all classes, particularly the basic skills coursework such as math, reading, science, and composition, are built around a real-world theme. The themes represent a wide spectrum ranging from landscape architecture to health care to environmental science. Construction should also be included in these new theme-based educational programs.
The merit and success of these enhanced high school programs is gaining acceptance by the education community. “These schools enjoy academic success fueled by a strong identity shared by families and faculty alike,” says Thomas Toch of the National Center on Education and the Economy, and author of “High Schools on a Human Scale”. The results of the enhanced programs include better descriptions of the attributes of specific vocations available to students. This allows students a much better chance of seeing if their interests and their capabilities match the work they would experience in the future. Another outcome has been markedly better preparation of the student for post high school technical training and college degree pursuit.
Such theme-based enhancements relating to construction are still few and far between, however some notable pioneering programs are pushing the envelope. Trade groups such as the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) are at the vanguard of such efforts. At East Ridge High School of Chattanooga, Tennessee the Construction Career Academy is based on the “theme-school within a school” model organized around a construction theme. Opened in 2003 with 50 students, and expecting up to 100 students in 2004, the program includes sophomores through seniors. The academy stresses the tactic of connecting all the core academic subjects of high school into the construction theme. “Students can pursue either a construction apprenticeship or a college path,” says AGC spokesperson Dennis Day. “Both paths lead to career opportunities in construction: project manager, craft worker, designer, supervisor, inspector, and supplier are just a few of the careers related to the construction industry.”
The high school program enhancement created by this integration of construction into the basic skills coursework is significant, both for the student’s motivation and for their learning level. The theme-academy approach differs from both traditional high school as well as vocational education in that the approach prepares high school students for both college and work. The theme-academy approach removes the distinction between college prep and vocational tracks, also bringing together students who are typically separated. This allows the more hands-on students to see how academic subjects apply to construction. At the same time it allows the students more interested in science and math to see how their interests and skills could make them valuable in the construction industry. This is not lost on the students themselves. Construction Career Academy student Darren Camp says, “I think the Construction Academy has helped me a lot. My math grade has improved. I even like coming to school more.”
The Harry A. Burke High School in Omaha, Nebraska, offers another promising example. Organized within this public high school system is the Architecture-Engineering-Construction (ACE) Academy. The Academy is structured to be a small learning community of students interested in studying and exploring the construction industry and accepts students who demonstrate high motivation and superior classroom behaviors. The Academy is directly linked with local industry including the Metropolitan Omaha Builder’s Association (MOBA). Within the Academy program, students receive classroom work in core areas which incorporate construction related issues and problems, laboratory work, work-based experience, and career exploration activities. Harris Payne is a Burke High School curriculum specialist with responsibility for the ACE Academy. In this job, Mr. Payne works to create a multi-dimensional focus including pure technical skills such as Autocad expertise, as well as important “enabling” skill-sets such as teamwork, problem solving, and leadership. Payne is greatly concerned by the perception of Burke students and their parents that construction education and a construction career means hardhats and toolbelts. He believes a big part of his Academy’s challenge, and that of the construction industry, is to create awareness that construction is a diverse professional endeavor, which includes expertise ranging from finance, to marketing, to law.
Although a fledgling program, these construction theme programs are gaining popularity. The Chattanooga Construction Career Academy is attracting students who must apply in writing, have letters of recommendation, and must interview with both instructors and industry professionals. Teachers are also being attracted, including those with no connection to, or vested interest in, construction. East Ridge English teacher Denise Hearn welcomed the opportunity. “When I first heard of the program I was fascinated,” she said. “For some time I have struggled to engage students in English class and to show them the relevance of the class in relation to their future lives and jobs.” She reports that within the construction theme academy program, she sees students making a direct correlation between the working world and the core subjects of reading and composition.
Incorporating activities which engage the student outside of the classroom is a tactic that could accomplish the type of results outlined above while requiring less drastic revision of the existing high school curriculum and delivery. These could be accomplished in two distinct manners to engage students with different interests and abilities while accomplishing the primary objective: creating the connection between the student’s interest and abilities, and the opportunities and needs of the construction industry. The first is based on activities closely associated with the educational institution, either high school or college, but executed distinctly as an extra-curricular activity. A second is an activity totally separate from the educational facility.
Special interest, extra curricular activities are an established mechanism for generating and promoting student interest in specific areas. Although this has been under-utilized in the construction industry, there are successful precedents that present themselves as models for expanded utilization nationwide. The 4th annual Academy of Excellence (AOE) held at the Peter Kiewit Institute (PKI) on the University of Nebraska-Omaha campus is attracting high-potential students to information technology (IT) and engineering. Each year, 40 high school sophomores who had been nominated from schools around the state, based on achievement in math and science, along with a mentor of their choosing, participate in a weeklong program at the PKI facilities. The program is designed to familiarize students with the career opportunities in areas such as construction. The AOE provides academic challenges, hands-on problem solving activities, and field trips.
At the end of the AOE program, students who initially had an interest, or a least curiosity, in IT and engineering, have met like-minded peers, and interacted with professionals who are highly energized and excited about the topic. The AOE is relatively new, but enjoying great success. The PKI Executive Director Winnie Callahan says, “The AOE is intended to familiarize students and teachers alike with opportunities. Trained professionals in these fields are in great demand, and educating young people about the opportunities they have is important locally and nationally”.
Another set of programs being offered through the University of Nebraska-Omaha campus, are the Women In IT and Engineering, and the Diversity In IT and Engineering. These are week long activities for high school students, where they create movable bridges using LEGO Mind StormTM components which are controlled by computers and student-written software. In addition to technology, the students see the teamwork, the interpersonal-skills, and the communication requirements which are necessary to make a construction project team successful.
A second activity occurs not only outside the classroom, but also entirely away from the educational facility. This activity has its roots in basic on-the-job-training, but goes a significant step further. In addition to exposing a student to a work setting in an area of construction, this activity also couples the student with a professional who provides active mentoring during the process. This double-edged approach of real-world involvement, and personal attention by a motivated professional, has a very strong ability to capture student interest. Mentored activities such as this have proven successful at giving high school students a positive exposure to construction.
An example activity, in fact, has resulted in 78% of its participants going on to selecting a construction or engineering-related major in college (Engineering News Record, May 22, 2000). ACE Mentor Program, Inc based in New York City couples groups of prescreened students with construction professional volunteers. The teams work on both virtual and real construction projects. Such work is showing signs of being a successful way to attract young people to construction. This specifically includes those students who do not have familiarity with construction, who do not recognize their own abilities as valuable to the construction industry, and who would not likely have avenues of opportunity in the profession. In the year 2000, 40% of 217 student participants were female and 80% were minorities. A New York student participant said,” the program gave me a career path” and of 326 program graduates, 112 went on to college majors associated with construction (Engineering News Record, May 22, 2000). Mentors are equally as excited and in 2000 there were nearly 50 in New York City and additional programs developing in New Jersey and Connecticut. The mentors believe the students, and the construction industry, benefit from the hands-on experience gained by the students coupled with the personal coaching. The results which are emerging give credence to this thinking with higher numbers of more highly qualified students opting for a construction education and career.
If young people were to become better oriented to the many “personal development issues” aspects of the construction industry, a greater number of them might see the industry as part of their own future. A positive manner for offering this type of orientation could be workshop-oriented activities which challenge students to be bold when thinking of their future, to have more confidence when assessing their abilities, and to be more collaborative when thinking of teamwork settings. In other words: discovering the potential within themselves as well as the full potential which exists in the construction industry. Providing a workshop framework for youth along specific personal development themes, while at the same time using construction-industry facts, issues, and opportunities as a backdrop for workshop delivery and presentation, could open minds to new career possibilities and at the same time cast construction careers in a positive light.
Young people pursue careers in order to achieve personal and professional goals. Construction-related careers allow significant, and highly diverse, goals to be achieved. However, many students have a narrow view of the construction industry, the associated jobs, and the many avenues it offers for reaching personal and professional success. Construction-industry sponsored personal development workshops facilitated in high school curriculums could increase student interest. The workshops could be focused and implemented in three topical categories: 1) development of personal visions, 2) personal goal setting, and 3) personal action plans. Introducing such topics to high school students, facilitated by both academic and industry participants would stimulate student’s thinking about the future, it would allow them to associate their future with the construction industry, and it would allow the student to identify many different goals which could be achieved through a construction-related career.
The first personal development workshop could be focused on giving the student a framework and a forum to consider and develop their own personal vision. A personal vision is a statement of a preferred future. A personal vision may include making a vital change in an area such as health, raising happy, well-adjusted children, writing a book, owning a business, living on a beach, being fit and healthy, visiting every continent, or helping others with their spiritual development. An individual’s personal vision can begin to take shape by reflecting on issues such as the following:
 | Things I Really Enjoy Doing, |
| What Brings Me Happiness/Joy, |
| The Two Best Moments of My Past Week, |
| Three Things I'd Do If I Won the Lottery, |
| Issues or Causes I Care Deeply About, |
| Things I Can Do at the Good-to-Excellent Level, |
| What I'd Like to Stop Doing or Do as Little as Possible, |
| My Most Important Values. |
With the answers from issues like those above, a personal vision which is the dream or personal aspiration held by an individual will begin to form. It will be a vision that could provide happiness and contentment. Few college students have developed their own personal vision. It requires time and the motivation to reflect on their own happiness. No one can tell another individual what his or her personal vision is or should be. Current construction-related education and orientation programs do not include content which would potentially inspire many potential students, but the addition of personal visioning could be a very positive tool for attracting talent into the construction industry. Informed and experienced facilitators can advise, challenge, inform, and encourage high school students. People who are experienced in the construction industry, for example, could effectively facilitate students during a visioning activity. This kind of facilitation would expose the students to personal and professional possibilities in the field they would not otherwise perhaps ever have occasion to consider, and ultimately to act upon. In summary, the outline of a personal visioning workshop presentation might be as follows:
The personal visioning exercise could lay the groundwork for the second personal development workshop focused on goal setting. The addition of a goal-setting workshop based on individual accomplishments, strengths, and interests could be a very positive recruiting tool for attracting talent into the construction industry. Creating specific, achievable goals is the tactic for fulfilling a personal vision. Goal setting is a formal process for personal planning. By setting goals on a routine basis, an individual decides what to achieve, and then moves step-by-step towards the achievement of these goals. The process of setting goals and targets is a process of actively choosing a life roadmap rather than leaving life’s destination to chance. Goals are set on a number of different levels. At the highest level, the individual decides what to do with their life and what large-scale goals they want to achieve. These broad goals are then broken down into the smaller and smaller targets, which must hit to reach the lifetime goals.
Like a personal vision, only the individual themselves can set goals. However, the availability of knowledgeable, construction-oriented facilitators can help the individual take this step even further. This help can take the form of providing students with a context about industry careers, for example, and by providing a framework of broad guidelines for effective goal setting.
For many high school students, setting goals associated with a construction career and implementing them could seem like a daunting process, if indeed they even considered it at all. Not unlike most successful construction projects, the process of successful goal setting and achievement requires planning, organizing, controlling, monitoring, and evaluating. Using concepts directly from this paper, the outline of a workshop presentation and group activities might be as follows:
Construction-related careers can be viewed by high school students as requiring skills and self-confidence which the individual does not have. This is the focus of the third personal development workshop. Self-confidence is needed for achievement in school, making good career decisions, and for making good choices in life. During high school, many students have imperfect knowledge about their own abilities as well as career opportunities, and often question their ability to be successful in specific career endeavors. Most certainly, they often have imperfect knowledge about the requirements and the opportunities of specialized occupations such as construction. The combination of these two situations leads to missed career opportunities for students and missed personnel opportunities for companies in the construction industry.
Students are sometimes convinced by themselves and others that they are not good enough, or smart enough, to accomplish challenges which may seem daunting; challenges which require performing activities never before attempted. This type of programming reduces the confidence to explore new areas and limits the chances an individual will “take a chance” on anything out of the ordinary. Being creatures of habit, people will often have a tendency to stay within a comfort zone. As they make career decisions, this tendency inhibits actions and reduces the options which are considered. This failure to act on possibilities, which may lie slightly out of a personal comfort zone become unfortunate limiters to personal achievement and can be addressed by facilitating the development of personal action plans facilitated by workshop activities. A topical framework for leading students to consider the issues and goals of their own personal action plan can be defined by using three steps that are defined by “ACT” (Meyerson):
A positive and articulate personal action plan, and the self-confidence that such a plan creates, is an important success factor for an individual and the success they will achieve in career and in life. Helping students gain this confidence, particularly against a construction career oriented backdrop, could provide a powerful tool for positioning those individuals to find opportunities in places they would not normally look, such as the construction industry.
If high school curriculums and early-college construction programs could collaborate regarding course content, a very positive connection could be made by students interested in a construction career. This connection could be a strong force for attracting a greater number of students into construction programs, and could have them more qualified at their arrival. The current situation, except for a handful of exceptions, is that students interested in construction, and those with potential interest, have no high school experience, which is oriented to their interest, either vocational or academic.
The surprising aspect of this situation is how such collaborative efforts are highly emphasized in other fields of study and work. For those following a science or English interest, for example, high school programs are awash with College Board Advanced Placement (AP) courses. This AP content is developed to maximize the student’s high school years such that they are able to bypass the college survey/introductory class work. In a similar manner the International Baccalaureate (IP) and high school Honors Classes also work to provide high school educational experiences which will ultimately supplant early-college courses. However, as noted earlier in this paper, while 75% of education resources are expended to serve 33% of high school graduates, these AP, IP and Honors programs are less responsive to prospective construction career candidates.
Ideas, which could be a start for high school and early-college collaboration, exist in two places at opposites sides of the United States: Washington state and New Hampshire. In fact, it is called “Running Start”. Running Start is an educational program, enabled through specific changes to state educational laws, which allows eligible high school juniors and seniors an opportunity to attend college classes. The credit earned for these classes progresses the student towards a college degree, while at the same time fulfilling high school graduation requirements. Some Running Start students have been able to graduate from high school and at the same time receive an Associate degree from a community college. The students are then prepared for the workplace or for a head-start enrollment in four-year institutions.
Running Start is designed to fill an educational vacuum. Specifically, the program is designed for students who:
This type of program could be adopted by the construction industry as a powerful tool to recruit and prepare high school students for construction education programs in college. If industry professionals could inspire collaboration between the state-controlled high schools and targeted colleges with construction programs, the results could be gratifying. Many students would find the early-college courses in construction stimulating and would have a tendency to continue. At the same time they would be becoming better prepared for success in college.
High school and early college programs could be enhanced to the benefit of both students and the construction industry. Recent and ongoing enhancement efforts across four distinct areas have shown that success is attainable. In schools organized around a “construction theme” model, the basic skills coursework such as math, reading, science, and composition, have been reengineered to incorporate construction content including estimating, design, and specifications. Outside-the-classroom functions such as extra-curricular activities focused on special interest, construction-oriented topics; as well as off campus mentoring activities, have accomplished impressive results such as a 78% enrollment by participants in construction related college programs and attracting a participant population composed of 80% minorities. Mostly overlooked personal development activities could leverage a student’s academic skill-sets, and individual interests and aptitudes, into successful construction career accomplishments. And finally, a higher degree of collaboration between high school and early-college curriculums could streamline student study and provide additional motivation for students to pursue a college-level construction program.
One of the most important action facing the construction industry is the challenge of taking these four distinct areas and integrating them into a coordinated program for enhancing education. Such a coordinated enhancement could result in an increased number of more highly qualified college students in construction programs.
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