Case History of Curricular and Capstone Redesign at an Undergraduate-Only Institution

Abstract This paper describes a curricular redesign focused on a new two-semester capstone course sequence in the civil engineering program at the US Air Force Academy, an undergraduate-only military service academy. The journey to the new curriculum began with the commissioning of a scholarly productivity assessment of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2020. Central to the curricular redesign was the creation of a new two-course capstone sequence that allows students to tackle realistic, ill-defined problems that they will face after graduation. The new capstone has three tracks Design, Design-Build, and Research-and-Design. The program has completed its second iteration of the new curriculum and capstone sequence with results that indicate high levels of student engagement in meaningful projects across all three tracks, engagement with external partners that enhance education, and significantly increase scholarly productivity from faculty. This case study contributes to civil engineering education by presenting a replicable and scalable model for integrating student choice, high-impact practices, and research-teaching linkages in a constrained undergraduate curriculum.