Internal Impediments to ASCE’s Vision 2025

Abstract

ASCE published a report entitled “The Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025” in 2007 and a report entitled “Achieving the Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025: A Roadmap for the Profession” in 2009. The group within ASCE that published the Vision stated its desire to have this vision “guide the policies, plans, processes and progress within the civil engineering community and beyond—and around the globe.” Referencing literature associated with professional ethics, sociology, and psychology, this paper critically examines the elements of the Vision relating to ethics, collaboration, broad perspectives and skills, and innovation. Using the author’s experiences with designing for construction safety and innovation research, the paper discusses factors internal to the profession that may hinder the achievement of these elements, including business interests, community self-preservation mechanisms, the profession’s normative traditions, and rigid curricula constraints.