Speaker: Maj. Berndt Spittka | Civil and Mechanical Engineering | United States Military Academy
Coauthors: LTC Steve Hart & Dr. Chris Conley | United States Military Academy
The ability to wrap your mind around a complex problem is necessary in order to begin solving the problem. In order to allow cadets to begin to understand the wicked problems that are inherent to infrastructure, West Point faculty members have developed and present a set of Conceptual Models in CE350: Infrastructure Engineering. The development of the models was driven by a need highlighted by recent history of Infrastructure failures. On the civilian side the American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering call for Infrastructure leadership. On the academic side the constituents of the Military Academy asked for graduates to be able to understand, visualize and describe infrastructure. On the military side the lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan showed a need for understanding infrastructure. These models allow students from all disciplines of academic study to quickly and accurately understand visualize and describe the infrastructure they are discussing. The CE350 family of models includes the Component Model, the Assessment Model, and the Resilience Model. Taken as a whole, these models allow students the ability to start to formulate their solutions to wicked problems.