Full Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education, Issue ...

IWRM Curriculum in the United States109project focus;• more interagency/collaboration and planning;greater reliance on institutional approaches todealing with water resources issues;• more technical review and management ofprivate sector work; and• how policy is made and implemented, whatis needed to defend your work in that broadercontext.A UCOWR committee was commissioned by theCorps of Engineers in 2001 to develop a curriculumfor what would become the Masters Degree Programin Water Resources Planning and Management. Thecommittee was tasked with identifying standardizedcourses and course content that universities wouldbe required to adopt if they wished to participatein the program. Eight “cornerstone” core courseswere subsequently identified, which the committeedetermined provided the needed grounding in keycomponents of water resources planning. In additionto independent study and a “capstone course,”the following eight “core” courses comprised theMaster’s Program:• Philosophy of Planning (3 semester hours)• Institutional Considerations in Water ResourcesPlanning (3 semester hours)• Social Decision-Making (3 semester hours)• Ecology for Water Resources Planning(3 semester hours)• Engineering for Water Resources Planning(3 semester hours)• Economics for Water Resources Planning(3 semester hours)• Hydrology/Hydraulics/Climatology(3 semester hours)• Quantitative Methods for Water ResourcesPlanning (3 semester hours)In addition to curriculum development, thecommittee had to take into account some practicalconsiderations. The Corps of Engineers, forinstance, is a geographically diverse organization,operating out of 37 field offices (districts) and eightregional offices (divisions) that are spread acrossthe country. It was simply infeasible to identifya network of co-located universities. It was alsoassumed that most of the employees pursuing aMaster’s Degree would also be working full timewith as little time away from the office as possible.A number of flexible options for delivering theprogram therefore had to be taken into account,such as:• Maximized distance learning options• Intensive short-courses: instruction providedover a week or two-week period,• Resident program: students are resident atuniversity for a semester or during the summerfor intensive course work, and• Blended delivery: combinations of distancelearning and one or more of the other options.Once the training needs were identified, a requestfor a proposal to implement the multi-disciplinarygraduate program was sent to more than 90member universities of UCOWR, plus a selectgroup of other potential candidate universities.Over 20 qualified universities expressed a stronginterest but were unable to participate due tointernal constraints, such as one year residencyrequirements, limits on the acceptance of transfercredits, and the absence of any interdisciplinarydegree program.A number of factors that were addressed inthe development of the Corps’ Masters DegreeProgram, therefore, have direct relevance for theimplementation of an expanded, multi-universityprogram that encompasses the principles ofIWRM. Since the inception of the Corps’ program,other universities, such as Texas A&M and theUniversity of Wisconsin, have started to developinter-disciplinary degree programs related to waterresource management on their own. The surveywas prepared in an attempt to gauge the adequacyof what is presently being offered on a nationalscale or whether further steps are warranted toadvance training and education related to IWRM.Survey Questions and ResultsAWRA has a large database of water resourcesspecialists throughout the world. An online surveywas prepared by a small group of senior AWRAand UCOWR representatives and emailed to thoseindividuals on AWRA’s omnibus list. That list, whichhas been compiled over the years, is not restrictedto a particular sector (academia or government)or water resource discipline (engineering oreconomics). Such a broad representation arguablyallowed for feedback from the entire spectrum ofinterests that IWRM comprises. SurveyMonkeysoftware was used to conduct the online survey,JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY WATER RESEARCH & EDUCATIONUCOWR