A Conversation With ... Shawn Strong, Ph.D.

The industrial management department has three main degree options. One is the Bachelor of Applied Science and Technology Management, for two-year Associate of Applied Science recipients. For instance, they may take (classes) at (Ozarks Technical Community College) and transfer into that degree. The (second) is our industrial management degree, preparing folks to go to work in production, different industrial areas. Then there’s construction management. Construction is our biggest area. We have about 265 students in our construction program. We also have a master’s degree … in project management. It’s generic project management, but construction is one of the largest employers of project managers. We just started that last fall. We’re at about 350 students departmentwide.

MSU’s construction degrees are accredited by the American Council for Construction Education. What does that mean for students?

There are about 60 four-year programs around the country that have that accreditation. After we received that accreditation, I had companies calling me from around the country, saying, ‘We see you’re accredited. We’d like to recruit your students.’

Construction industry representatives often talk about the challenges of finding qualified workers. From an education standpoint, what challenges do you see?

Our challenges aren’t what maybe other programs would have (of) getting good, quality students and enough of them. We’re preparing project managers, estimators and some superintendents. Part (of our challenge) is quantity, although we’re growing so fast, I’d hate to grow any faster. Our challenge is having enough faculty given the number of students we have in our program. Finding construction faculty with Ph.D.s is probably our biggest challenge. We find across the College of Business that anytime our students are paid very well … the people who would be of the caliber to get a Ph.D. are getting paid far more (in the field) than we could ever pay them here.

Do you think there’s a misperception among young people about what construction is, or its possibilities?

I think the construction industry as a whole has matured over the last five or 10 years. It’s become much more professional, and usually when the students decide to pursue a construction management degree, they figure that out. The caliber of students has increased, the goals of the students have changed. (They’re) more goal-oriented. They’ve probably figured out the potential of the degree program. The students and the people I talk to on a daily basis have a very good perception of the construction industry. I’m probably a little bit isolated as to how the general public feels about (construction), but we feel awful good about it.

What goals do you have for the department?

As quickly as we’ve grown, we’ve begun talking about a new building. We’d like to continue to meet needs and grow a little bit further, but before that, we’re going to have to have additional faculty positions. It’s not just a matter of finding students – because I think we can do that – we’ve exceeded our critical mass … and for the last three years in a row, we’ve grown 20 percent a year in the construction program.

What’s your professional background?

My background is more on the facilities management side. I actually started out with a two-year Associate of Applied Science degree in mechanical construction technology, basically, heating and air conditioning and plumbing. I enjoyed working in the trades but knew that’s not what I wanted to do. At that point, I went and got a management degree and a Master of Business Administration, and about the time I got through with my bachelor’s degree, I could see that maybe I’d want to go on and teach at a university. I usually teach a class a semester.

Tell us about your family and what you enjoy in your free time.

My wife is Amy, and we have a 4-year-old son, Lucas. We lost a 2-month-old son, Silas, about a year ago, and we’ve started a scholarship in his name here in the department for promising incoming freshmen. In the last couple of years, I’ve added about 3,000 square feet to our home. Last summer, I hired about three students. We’ve always got a construction project going at the house for something.

Interview by Features Editor Maria Hoover. You can e-mail her with suggestions for future installments of this feature at mhoover@sbj.net.