CSU Summer Co-op Connects Students with Industry and Community Challenges
For Cleveland State University students interested in construction, this summer was anything but ordinary.
The inaugural Construction Management/Project Delivery Institute Summer Co-op brought 10 students from four disciplines together with 37 industry and community mentors representing 20 organizations for a summer of hands-on training, real-world problem-solving, community engagement and applied research.
Salwa Beheiry, Ph.D., director of CSU’s Construction Management program and Project Delivery Institute, led the effort with faculty colleagues John Annor, Ph.D., and Josiah Owusu-Danquah, Ph.D., and support from Erin Elosh, senior manager of Work-Based Learning.
“The CM/PDI @ CSU Summer Co-op embodies the synergy of Research, Development, and Education (RDE) platforms with academic programs to create meaningful learning and discovery ecosystems. Our students remain the heart of our work. And as Cleveland’s University, CSU will continue preparing a nationally competitive workforce equipped to serve, strengthen, and advance our industry and community,” said Beheiry.
INDUSTRY HELPED SHAPE THE QUESTIONS
Industry and community stakeholders identified regional priorities, workforce needs and technical challenges, while mentors provided guidance through speaker sessions, project reviews and career conversations. Students applied digital construction tools to develop senior design, capstone and applied research concepts, modeling buildings, evaluating sites, identifying clashes, estimating costs and developing schedules.
Industry mentors saw the technologies in action. “It was a pleasure to participate in the inaugural CM/PDI summer experience,” said Matthew Wenham, P.E., deputy design manager at Jacobs. “The faculty and students were very welcoming and highly engaged. I was greatly impressed by their virtual reality experiences.”
IDEAS WITH A PAST BEYOND SUMMER
The experience produced seven prospective senior design and capstone concepts, including Civil Engineering student Emmanuella Bwaka’s framework for comparing housing options and Finance student H. Quinn Pauly’s digital dashboard for project and financial data.
“I learned that a solution does not always begin by designing or calculating, but sometimes it simply comes from a question,” Bwaka wrote in a student reflection included in the report.
“Through a productive, engaging and open discussion, we talked about the many opportunities in the construction industry as well as some of the exciting paths students can forge after graduation. Afterward, we reviewed some of the projects they worked on throughout the summer. What the students are doing will not only prepare them but also put them ahead of the game in the construction management industry when they graduate,” said Douglas A. Thomas, P.E., executive project manager at Independence Excavating Inc.
The summer co-op launched an industry-academic research program through PDI@CSU, with faculty and graduate students developing six research papers with industry and community partners for submission to conferences and journals.
STUDENTS BECOME MENTORS
The summer’s community engagement with Food Strong and the ACE Mentor Program gave ACE participants a real-world design project while CSU students provided mentoring in digital modeling, construction technologies and engineering pathways, supported by a software starter manual from graduate students.
“This Co-op became more than a technical assignment. It became a space where I learned how to communicate professionally, collaborate effectively,” Construction Management student Aldonte Bryant wrote in a reflection excerpt included in the program’s report.
“The success of the CM/PDI summer co-op exhibits the enormous importance of the partnership of industry, community, and CSU. It also indicates the capability of CSU's faculty to develop the future workforce needed for the Cleveland community,” said Stephen Arhin, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
A FOUNDATION FOR A BROADER COLLABORATION
In his message to university leadership, Dean Richard T. Schoephoerster highlighted the pilot as an example of the experiential learning, community engagement and collaboration that the CSU Talent Hub could help support across the university and our community.
“We started the Construction Management program and the Project Delivery Institute in response to a need we received from the community. This type of engagement between industry and our faculty and students is exactly what I had envisioned four years ago as our discussions were in the early stages. I am very proud of their efforts and the results in the first product from the Project Delivery Institute,” said Richard T. Schoephoerster, Ph.D., Professor and Dean of the Washkewicz College of Engineering.
The summer’s work laid a strong foundation for students and faculty to carry these ideas forward into capstone projects, applied research, and continued industry and community partnerships.