Roles of civil engineering faculty

The education of civil engineers who will continue to fulfill the societal demands of the 21st century has been the subject of a number of workshops and conferences in recent years. The writers believe that the role of civil engineering faculty in the education of future engineers is extremely important. Faculty will be required to teach new topics in different ways and with different tools. Yet in a research university, teaching is often only one of four or five activities a faculty member must perform. In a typical faculty reward system for research universities, teaching is not considered as important as paper publication or research marketing. In this paper, faculty needs are outlined, the roles of faculty members are discussed, and the current faculty reward systems are critically reviewed.