Aggie construction science students to begin
mentoring counterparts at Prairie View A&M

Aided by a $100,000 grant from the National Association of Home Builders, the Department of Construction Science at Texas A&M will assist its counterpart at Prairie View A&M University in enhancing the school’s residential construction management program.

The construction science program at Prairie View A&M, a historically black university, was launched six years ago.

“This is a very important initiative for us on two levels,” said Jorge Vanegas, interim dean of Texas A&M’s College of Architecture. “Promoting diversity is one of the imperatives that is driving our college in each one of our four departments and five research centers. In addition, the collaboration of institutions within the Texas A&M System is also a high priority.”

Texas A&M president Dr. Elsa Murano also spoke highly of the partnership with Prairie View.

“We are excited that this innovative program will draw upon the collaborative resources of the two land grant institutions in the state of Texas — Texas A&M University and Prairie View A&M University,” she said. “Throughout the collective history of our institutions we have always found that more can be accomplished by working together.”

The grant comes from the NAHB’s National Housing Endowment, which, among its other funding endeavors, assists universities in the development of housing-related curricula and activities. The NAHB is a Washington, D.C.-based trade association that aims to improve the climate for housing and the building industry.

Through housing construction industry matching funds and Texas A&M University assistance, the total impact of the grant is $277,000.
 
“The key behind this is that in homebuilding, there is a real lack of diversity,” said Peterson. “Culturally diverse students are an untapped resource in our area. Combining forces with Prairie View A&M would be a tremendous asset for NAHB and for the future of residential construction in taking steps toward cultural diversity in residential construction management.”

Peterson said the schools’ construction science departments will form two joint competition teams, share a residential construction course, take joint field trips to construction sites, hold joint NAHB student chapter meetings and take part in other activities together.

The two schools are separated by just 41 miles, most of which can be traveled on state highway 6.

“We’re trying our best to share whatever resources we have,” said Peterson. “We’d love for them to help us, or be able to work on a project at the college’s Architecture Ranch and just be in the habit of cooperating, joining forces and expanding residential construction management.”

Each January, student teams from universities across the country compete in a contest at the NAHB’s International Builders Show in Las Vegas.

There, in front of a crowd of hundreds of people, students present a development plan for a specific piece of land. The teams, which begin their work after receiving contest parameters in October, must provide a plan for land development, market analysis, estimating, scheduling, marketing, and customer service.

Prairie View’s construction science program has never sent a team to NAHB’s Las Vegas contest, but now they’ll have help from the Aggie students, whose teams over the past few years have risen from 8th place to 5th place to 3rd place in the competition; the two schools will combine to send two joint teams to the contest in January 2009.

“It’s intimidating to, out of the blue, create a competition team,” said Peterson. “It’s a pretty intense process, so we want to partner with them, get a combined team, and help them into their first competition,” he said. “Then from there, they can start their own competition teams.”

Peterson and Al Hinson, a Houston homebuilder and construction science faculty member at Prairie View A&M, will be spending lots of time at each other’s campuses.

“I’m going to go to Prairie View A&M and lecture with their students,” said Peterson.  “Al Hinson, is going to come here and teach some of our classes, but we’re going to work on the same industry-sponsored project and we’ll work together through that process.”

The NAHB was also drawn to the idea because of the possibility of more cooperation between Texas A&M University System campuses.

“What the national housing endowment likes so much about this program is that we’re a university proposing a system to mentor other construction programs in how to enhance their residential construction management emphasis,” said Peterson.

By establishing the program, he added, it could then be replicated throughout the Texas A&M System’s nine universities.

“And if we’re able to replicate this with Texas A&M Commerce or Texas A&M Kingsville, for example, it could be quite an outreach, and then if the National Housing Endowment likes that, we could use this for other states as a template for other universities throughout the nation to use,” said Peterson.

“The short distance between College Station and Prairie View will help pave the way for additional collaborations throughout the Texas A&M System and other universities across the nation,” said Texas A&M president Murano.

- November 11, 2008 -