History

The Department was established in 1975 with only the undergraduate programs at the beginning. A two-year (day school) and a three-year (night school) undergraduate program were designed to recruit the graduates of five-year, two-year, or three-year junior technical colleges majored in the fields of civil engineering, architectural engineering, or other related fields. Another four-year undergraduate program was opened for the graduates of vocational senior high schools in the fields of civil engineering, architectural engineering, or other related areas. Then a bachelor's degree of engineering was awarded to the two-year (day school), three-year (night school), or four-year undergraduate students who fulfilled all the requirements of course credits. The aim of the Department is to offer students the professional skills needed in the fields of construction engineering and construction management.

The first two-year undergraduate students were recruited in advance in December 1975, while the second two-year undergraduate students were recruited normally in September 1976. In order to meet the needs of rapid progress and development of modern advancement in Taiwan, the last (the 35th) two-year undergraduate students enrolled in 2009 will be graduated in 2011. Catering for the needs of further education for the on-the-job engineers, the first recruitment of three-year (night school) undergraduate students for these engineers was held in September 1984, while the last (the 36th ) three-year undergraduates were registered in September 2010 and will be graduated in 2013. The recruitment of four-year undergraduate students was started in September 1976, stopped recruitment during 1985 to 1991, and restarted from 1991 up to now. Therefore, the undergraduate programs of the Department will be consisted of only the four-year undergraduate students after the year of 2013. Currently, the student source of the four-year undergraduates is not limited to the students graduated from the vocational senior high schools. In 1998, the Department started to recruit the four-year undergraduates (10% annually of the recruited undergraduates from vocational high school) from the students graduated from the regular senior high schools. Since 2007, the Department began to recruit the undergraduate students from Honors Programs of College of Engineering and University established in 2004.  The department also hosts international undergraduates from Honduras, Guatemala, Turkey, or Indonesia, and the official language for undergraduate students is Chinese.

The master's program of graduate school was founded in 1979. The master's program recruits graduates from universities or colleges with major in civil engineering, architectural engineering, or other related engineering fields. After completing 24 credits within one to four years and passing the thesis defense, a student will be awarded a Master's of Science degree in engineering (M. S.). The doctoral program of graduate school was founded in 1983. The doctoral program recruits the master graduates from civil, architectural engineering, or other related graduate schools or colleges. After completing 18 credits and passing dissertation defense within two to seven years, a student will be awarded a degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). In order to provide further education opportunity for the senior engineers, starting from 1998, the Department annually recruited senior engineers with working experience of more than 5 years to pursue the master's degree on a part-time basis. A part-time doctoral program has been introduced since 1999 for the teachers of vocational senior high school, junior technical colleges and institutes. Such an on-the-job continuing educational program is specifically designed to promote the teaching standard and quality of vocational education. As a part of the internationalization promotion, the department has begun to recruit foreign graduate students and started to offer graduate courses in English since 2005. The international students for master's and doctoral degrees are mainly from Indonesia, Vietnam, Czech Republic, Russia, Sudan, Philippines, etc.

Currently, the Department recruits 60 four-year undergraduates, 94 master students, 15 part-time master students, and 26 doctoral students (including 2 part-time on-teaching-job graduate students) every year. Up to the academic year of 2009, there are totally 1172 students graduated from the four-year undergraduate program, 2301 students from the two-year undergraduate program, 1798 students from the master's program, 140 students from part-time master's program, 126 students from the doctoral program, 39 international students from the master's program and 5 international students from the doctoral program.

As for the continuing education program, a training course for construction field managers had been held on a contract basis for the Construction & Planning Administration-Ministry of the Interior from 1993 to 2000. There were about 400 engineers attending this program every year. Besides, a training course for the quality control engineers of public or private construction works has also been held since 1995 under the contract with the Public Construction Commission-Executive Yuan and Taipei City Government. It attracts up to 200 engineers every year to attend this course. In 2003, the re-training course for the quality control engineers of public or private construction works was offered to the former participants. To extend the base of continuing education program, a master's credit program for senior managers in the construction industry has also been offered since1996. It recruits 40 graduate level students in spring and fall semesters, respectively. To attend this master's credit program, students must have working experience of more than 3 years. The purpose of this program is to train the potential managers in the construction industry in order to enhance their qualification.