Fellows Program

Overview

Construction management is the mortar that joins the imaginative assumptions of architectural and engineering design to the hard realities of finance and construction technology. As such it has evolved to be essential, complex and complicated. For careers in any rapidly-changing field, where technology and innovation outpace traditional business practice, aggressive students need and demand coursework, research opportunities and real-life experience grounded in a diverse and multidisciplinary understanding. Engineers have left the slide rule and calculator behind to understand the rules and calculations of developers, bankers, labor leaders, elected officials, community activists, and architects. In a world linked by technology, travel and talent exchange, international experience is a given, not a luxury. Different and more effective methods of design, procurement and construction need to be studied in place, and seen, at-work, in the field. Meetings, discussions, colloquia and seminars bring together Global Leadership Program students with industry and government leaders, including those heading the major construction management, contracting and engineering firms in New York City and the world.

Coursework

Students selected for the Global Leaders Program are eligible to take courses that focus on global business strategy as it relates to the intersection of construction management, civil engineering, and entrepreneurial business methodologies. Some coursework confers experience in hypothetical situations, set in the near future, with multivariant analysis combining with trans-sectoral problem-solving. “What if” scenarios play out based on varying site, civic, fiscal and technical considerations. Other courses are grounded in how the “here and now” can be incrementally and radically improved by application of design thinking and engineering prowess.

Issues of construction process, procurement, methods and means play out within the context imposed by funding, code, labor and regulatory constraints and challenges. All courses are taught by distinguished Columbia University faculty, including full professors and adjuncts who are industry leaders in construction management, engineering technology, urban planning, and public policy.

Trips

Student participants in the Global Leaders Program are eligible to join with Columbia faculty to visit current construction sites and recently completed projects both locally in the tri-state area, further afield in the United States, and overseas. Day trips easily accessible to those in the Global Leaders Program include new residential and commercial towers in New York City, along with large-scale transit-oriented development along the Washington-Boston Corridor. Cities in the US from Los Angeles to New Orleans, from Chicago to Miami, will be studied with particular regard to public-private partnerships and municipal projects that advance industry standards pertaining to resilience, sustainability, safety, security, and social equity. Abroad, advances in civil engineering technics, construction management practice and building design and systems will be studied in cities such as Copenhagen, London, Madrid, and Paris. Partnerships with industry leaders in other cities, domestic and abroad, will complement liaison with the technical faculties of local universities. Site visits and longer trips are intense and immersive, meant to acquaint student participants with the essence of project, program and process innovation. They address real-life problems, and real-time solutions.

Independent Study

The overarching rubric of Global Leader Program opportunities for independent study is one of “action research.”  One definition of action research that describes the goals of the CBIPS Global Leaders Program is “a process in which participants examine their own educational practice systemically and carefully, using the techniques of research.” As applied to educational practice for construction management, the research techniques applied bring together a wide variety of academic silos from the social sciences of psychology and sociology, to the physical arts of architecture, landscape design and urban planning. The framework holding these together is civil engineering, with an emphasis on what, in the civic realm, is determined by civility, cultural understanding, and user-oriented service design.

The expectation is that students participating in the program will use this opportunity to augment specific areas of knowledge along with personal capabilities that relate to a wide variety of possible experiences, endeavors and understanding. An empathetic approach to looking at academic research and construction management skills in many diverse and different cultural contexts is a starting point. The application of research to neighborhood development, urban design and economic growth is a goal and assumption. Student-generated independent research projects are overseen and augmented by one-on-one faculty advice along with mentorship from esteemed industry and government leaders on the Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space Industry Advisory Board. Presentations of ongoing research will be presented regularly to other student participants in the Global Leader Program for peer review and reality check. Study projects, in an action research mode, can be designed to help solve an immediate problem, often by positing a “community of practice” that is interdisciplinary in nature, and independent in spirit.

Internships

With the involvement of the Industry Advisory Board firms and agencies, ranging from AECOM to Syska, and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, internships and project-oriented temporary placements are a hallmark of the Global Fellows Program. With the firms participating currently working in approximately 150 different countries, the management, regulatory and technical differences and similarities will craft experience that not only augments resume credentials but imparts lifelong experience that can only be outlined in the classroom and lecture hall.

Timeline

To allow for the greatest academic flexibility, the Global Fellows Program timeline is coincident with that of Columbia University and its engineering school. Coursework follows the academic schedule, including study and exam periods. Independent Study and Internships have fewer constraints and can and do straddle academic years as well as school vacation periods.

Objectives

The Global Fellows Program is predicated on three important objectives that inform both student participants and faculty mentors:

• Bringing to the field of construction management the business practices of teamwork, collaboration and collective decision-making that have increasingly stressed the diversity of experience, knowledge, formation and cultural background.
• Using knowledge already garnered and research, internships and tutorials undertaken in the program to quickly and emphatically boost global cultural understanding and empathy, enabling participants to be more effective in a business world that is increasingly unified.
• Developing awareness of how effective decision-making in project development, construction management, and community empowerment relates to the precepts and stages of design thinking from an engineering point of view: empathic understanding of the need and user group, definition of the problem at hand, research including independent study, ideation and brainstorming, prototyping and creative systems modeling, selection and implementation, and post-occupancy observation.

Admissions

The Global Fellows welcomes students who possess highly developed intellectual and interpersonal skills, along with imagination, creativity and ambition. Successful candidates will have already met rigorous academic requirements in their prior educational programs. As importantly they will demonstrate a marked desire to be part of the program through letters of recommendation and interview conversations with faculty, staff and advisors of the Columbia University Center for Buildings, Infrastructure and Public Space.

Supporters

Our program is supported by a long list of industry and government partners. Join us!