Constructing the Future

Midwest Schools Get High Grades
For Forward-Thinking Programs

by Jim Sulski

In February, representatives from more than 160 construction and real estate firms from across the Midwest went to Purdue University to take part in a job fair held by the school's building construction management program. They were there to woo all of 70 students slated to graduate this spring.

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"Our students receive multiple job offers," says Robert Cox, the department head and professor in the Building Construction Management department.

"We have a 100 percent placement rate."

Cox adds that education programs tied to real estate, architecture and construction are booming.

"The construction industry in general is not only doing well but continues to be more of a management business as well as a financial and planning business," says Michael Holland, executive vice president of the San Antonio-based American Council for Construction Education, which accredits construction education programs in colleges and universities across the country.

The council reviews about 60 four-year programs and nine two-year programs, including Purdue's. Other accreditation organizations are also used, such as the Tampa, Fla.-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business and the Washington, D.C.-based National Architectural Accrediting Board Inc.

DePaul Focuses Studies with New Center

The Real Estate Center at DePaul University's downtown Chicago campus has only been in existence for five years, but the program is at capacity, says Susanne Cannon, an associate professor in the center and its Douglas and Cynthia Crocker Endowed Director.

"We like to say we have been teaching real estate at DePaul since 1913, but up until recently, we never created a program to treat it as a separate major," she says. "The center came about after hearing from students who had been out in the field for 10 years and thought such a program would be conducive."

The program now has just under 100 students majoring in real estate studies and also serves more than 400 undergraduate students and more than 100 graduate students enrolled in other business degree programs but taking real estate courses. It is housed in the school's Finance Department.

One of the strengths of the program is "its ability to tap into one of the most remarkable real estate communities in the country," Cannon says. "We can draw on the resources and people and incorporate them into the curriculum."

For example, the Real Estate Center receives funds from more than 40 prominent real estate executives and institutions - called "sponsors" - such as Chicago Title Insurance Co., Grubb & Ellis, Trammell Crow Co., Turner Construction Co., Walsh Construction Co., W.E. O'Neil Construction and the Kimball Hill Homes Fund.

"These sponsors also teach, lecture and mentor our students," Cannon says.

The center offers three degree programs: the only undergraduate real estate major in Illinois, an MBA concentration in real estate finance and investment, and a master's of science degree in real estate through DePaul's Kellstadt Graduate School of Business.

And the program continues to grow, Cannon says. In the fall, New York hotel investor George Ruff awarded $1.5 million to DePaul, his alma mater, to start a professorship in real estate studies. The funds will be used to "teach complex real estate and urban planning issues from innovative, multidisciplinary approaches," Cannon says.

The year before that, the center received a $2 million gift from Douglas Crocker II, retired president and chief executive officer of Chicago-based Equity Residential Properties Trust.

In October, real estate scholar James Shilling was appointed the first Michael J. Horne Chair in Real Estate Studies. The position is being financed by a $4 million endowment underwritten by the Los Angeles-based Michael J. Horne Education & Healthcare Assistance Foundation.

Cannon says that in the future the program will look into several new real estate arenas.

"We need to do a better job at appreciating global investment," she says. "We are also exploring the possibility of a course in corporate real estate and facilities management, and we are also concerned about issues such as housing affordability."

IIT Designs New Generation of Architects

A few miles south of DePaul, the Illinois Institute of Technology has also experienced substantial growth in its real estate-related program, which focuses on architecture.

"We've doubled our undergraduate enrollment in the last five years," says Stephen Sennott, assistant dean for undergraduate affairs and an adjunct associate professor in the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture. Currently, the program hosts 539 undergraduate students and 208 graduate students.

One catalyst here has been the 2003 completion of a Helmut Jahn-designed student residence hall complex, State Street Village, the first new building constructed in nearly four decades at the IIT campus, which was designed by German architect and émigré Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Other draws have been the Rem Koolhaas-designed McCormick Tribune Center and the renovation of Mies' Crown Hall (although Sennott says that the enrollment surge has caused the program to move out of Crown Hall and into other IIT buildings).

In the latest endeavors, the school is working to restore the campus' historic Alfred Caldwell landscape plan and is also affiliating itself with the city of Chicago's green architectural trends.

"In the admissions files we get from high school kids, they're more aware of how architects shape their environments," Sennott says. "Architects are getting a lot of attention."

The program has a number of educational programs, such as a five-year professional bachelor's degree in architecture, a six-year bachelor's of architecture/master's of business administration double-degree option and a bachelor's of architecture/master's of civil engineering double-degree option.

As a result, many of the program's graduates are hired by architectural firms "looking for bright young architects," Sennott says, pointing to firms such as Murphy-Jahn and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP.

He adds that being located in Chicago is a plus because of the city's "legacy of sometimes radical architecture."

Purdue Places Emphasis on Research, Efficiency

Being in a "cornfield" hasn't hurt the expansion of the Purdue University building construction management program, department head Cox says. The curriculum has been around for 40 years but has doubled in enrollment during the last 20 years.

Currently, the program in West Lafayette, Ind., which is about 150 mi southeast of Chicago, boasts more than 535 undergraduate students and nearly 20 grad students.

"That growth can be mainly attributed to economic growth of the construction industry across the country," Cox says. "And the Midwest has also seen a population explosion in places such as Chicago, northern Indiana and Kansas City, which has been good for us."

The program mostly focuses on a bachelor's of science degree in building construction but has five areas of specialty: health care, electrical, mechanical, residential and demolition and reconstruction construction management.

Cox says the school focuses heavily on developing research techniques.

"We are constantly looking at technology as a way to improve construction efficiency," he says. For example, a graduate student is currently developing a "distant jobsite" technology that allows students to visit a jobsite without leaving the classroom.

"This is not a virtual jobsite," he adds. "This is a job site-classroom connection that is facilitated with helmet cams and audio and done over telephone lines."

The technology was launched in the fall semester for students in the school's demolition management program. "It's hard to get students down a demolition site because of safety concerns," Cox says.

This spring, however, the system will be made available to other students as well.

The school is also melding computer graphics with disaster recovery by collecting building data and converting that into graphic information. "We can use virtual reality to do simulations and walk-throughs of structures," Cox says. "We can use this type of technology to prevent loss of life or prevent total losses of buildings. Emergency personnel can use the technology to understand the structure before they get there."