Proposal Summary—Ph.D. in Civil and Infrastructure Engineering
The Volgenau School of Information Technology and Engineering established the Ph.D.
degree in Information Technology in 1982. The initial program was interdisciplinary in
scope, and spanned the departments represented at that time in the School. The program
has been successful and has attracted students in its interdisciplinary scope. As time went
on, concentrations were added to the program to reflect the diversity of departments and
curriculum in the School. The concentrations provided a useful measure to gauge interest
in specific disciplines. As these specific disciplines grew in interest, three spinoff Ph.D.
programs, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, and Statistical
Science were created.
The Department of Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering was initially
housed within the Department of Systems Engineering and became an independent unit
in 1989 as the Department of Urban Systems Engineering. In 1999, in recognition of the
need to better identify the focus of the department, the name of the department was
changed to the current title. The Department has seen a consistent growth in both
students and faculty members since the name change and as of fall 2007 has an
undergraduate and graduate student body of over 260 students and a faculty of 8 tenured
and tenure-track faculty.
The CEIE Department offers the M.S. degree is Civil and Infrastructure Engineering
(CEI) as well as two graduate certificates. To date, Doctoral degrees have been awarded
to our students through the Ph.D. in Information Technology with a concentration in
Civil, Environmental, and Infrastructure Engineering (CEIE), which is administered at
the Volgenau School-level. In addition, several of our faculty served as Dissertation
Directors for students who have graduated with Doctoral degrees through the College of
Science, Department of Environmental Science and Policy. The purpose of this proposal
is to create a spinoff Ph.D. degree in CIE that would be administrated by the faculty of
the CEIE Department. Upon acceptance of this proposal, it is presumed that the CEIE
concentration of the IT Ph.D. of the Volgenau School would end and that students
currently enrolled in that concentration would be offered the opportunity to switch to the
new Ph.D. program in Civil and Infrastructure Engineering or be allowed to complete
their studies through the Ph.D. in IT program. The academic requirements of the new
Ph.D. in CIE have been prepared and submitted for approval by the Graduate Council.
The proposed Ph.D. in CIE is needed for the following reasons:
(1) Recruitment of students from within our undergraduate program or from outside
institutions is difficult. Civil Engineering is a very mature discipline of study that
is not often thought of in terms of Information Technology. With the only option
currently available to civil engineering students of the Volgenau School being the
Ph.D. in Information Technology, many of our students have elected to study
elsewhere and it is difficult to quantify the number of students from outside
institutions who have rejected applying for such a degree when seeking Civil
Engineering education. The term “information technology” often brings to mind
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
information systems, databases, artificial intelligence, advanced programming
systems, and e-commerce. While certainly civil engineers use these technologies
on a regular basis, without reference to their application to the civil engineering
domain the degree is not as well recognized.
Civil engineering graduates of the Ph.D. in IT program have difficulty being
competitive for faculty positions at other institutions, as their Mason degree is
viewed as not being compatible with traditional civil engineering. Most faculty
position announcements specify a Ph.D. in civil engineering as the preferred
credential.
With the approval of this proposal, the CEIE Department will be able to offer and
administer a terminal degree thereby improving our ability to recruit, assess
students and admit students we feel will excel in our program.
Faculty have difficulty attracting research grants that support civil engineering
Ph.D. students. Students seeking the Ph.D. in IT are not viewed as suitable
research assistants.
With our growing undergraduate and graduate student body, the CEIE
Department has undertaken several faculty searches in the past few years.
Without a terminal degree offered through our department it is difficult to recruit
new faculty who recognize the importance of doctoral students to grow the
research and professional side of our department. With this new degree, we are
confident that new opportunities will emerge to grow and improve our
department.
The greater Washington metropolitan area provides numerous opportunities for graduates
of a Ph.D. in CEI. Numerous government laboratories in the area currently employee
professionals with advanced degrees in civil engineering and will benefit from the
additional graduates that are expected to complete our program. The faculty of CEIE has
developed working and academic relationships with a variety of government agencies
and laboratories such as the Federal Highway Administration’s Turner-Fairbank
Highway Research Center and the Army Corps of Engineers. The proximity to the
federal government makes GMU well-positioned to be a major provider of employees in
civil engineering. In addition, with the continued growth of the land development sector
in Northern Virginia, there is a need for graduates with advanced degrees to analyze and
interpret the impact on the infrastructure system and environment that underpins the everexpanding development along the east coast of the country.
The Commonwealth of Virginia only has two universities currently offering Ph.D.
degrees in Civil Engineering: The University of Virginia and Virginia Polytechnic
Institute. With the approval of the proposed Ph.D. in Civil and Infrastructure
Engineering at George Mason University, a new degree would be offered to students in
the Commonwealth, but more importantly give students in Northern Virginia an
opportunity to pursue doctoral studies in Civil and Infrastructure Engineering. The
current graduate program in the CEIE Department has attracted many students from the
public and private sector and has created on-site graduate programs at government
agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers. Our offering of classes after 4:30pm also
makes our program attractive to full-time working professionals.
The proposed Ph.D. in Civil and Infrastructure Engineering is simply a spinoff of the
existing Ph.D. in IT with a concentration of CEIE that has been utilized by our faculty in
the past several years. As a result, the creation of the new Ph.D. in CEI will not require
additional resources to administrate the program successfully.
The Graduate Council will be asked to vote on the following issues:
1. The SCHEV proposal for a Ph.D. in Civil and Infrastructure Engineering.
2. The creation of 2 new courses: CEIE 998 (Doctoral Dissertation Proposal) and CEIE
999 (Doctoral Dissertation).