The combination of architectural engineering and construction programs make The Charles W. Durham School the only one of its kind in the nation.

Housed in Omaha at The Peter Kiewit Institute, the school is part of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s College of Engineering. Is it Lincoln? Is it Omaha? Is it UNL? It can all be a little confusing.

For the record, the school is part of UNL’s College of Engineering, but it is housed at PKI in Omaha and Nebraska Hall at UNL. The school offers programs in both Omaha and Lincoln.

Jim O’Hanlon, Ed.D., interim director of The Charles W. Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, and Jonathan Shi, Ph.D., professor and director of the construction management program at the school, sat down and answered a few questions.

Click on the videos (right and below) to hear O’Hanlon share some examples of his experience with the generosity of donors to the University of Nebraska Foundation. You can also take a look around in the Durham School by clicking on the slide show below.

What is the Durham School?

Q: How did the school come about?
A: O’HANLON: Omaha has some leading firms in the area of construction, design and architectural engineering. Some of the top firms in the world are located there. The notion was to play off of that and to try to have the leading academic program in Nebraska as well. A proposal brought by the faculty from the three units that ultimately merged (architectural engineering, construction engineering and construction management) was approved by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents in December 2003 to form the school.

Q: What makes the school unique?
A: O’HANLON: There are other architectural engineering programs in the nation and there are certainly other construction programs, but they are not in the same units, therefore you don’t get the same kind of integration or interaction. When the plan was taken to the regents, documents said the two leading places were the Rinker School at the University of Florida and the Del Webb School at Arizona State University. Well, it’s true that they were the leading academic programs, but they were construction only. So in a sense, we were going a step further than they were.
SHI: Durham is one of a few schools nationally to offer a Ph.D. in architectural engineering and construction. The level of value that derives from Durham graduates’ successful careers and flows into the Nebraska economy is strong, and it’s incredibly vital.

Q: What is one thing people might find most interesting about the school?
A: O’HANLON: The thing that struck me immediately was how this moment is the right moment for the school. The kinds of things our faculty work on are really critical to our nation today. We have faculty members who work with Target to monitor the electricity use in their stores so that they use it as efficiently as possible. We have people with expertise in the development of batteries or systems for saving energy within buildings. We have people who are specialists in acoustics and people in the new computer assisted methods for designing and planning the construction of buildings. If you wanted to find an area that’s hot, we’re it. So we’re a unit whose time has come. We’ve built the foundation that will now, hopefully, allow us to do some really important things for the country in the future. We’ve redeveloped our teaching programs and we have things in place from a teaching standpoint. Now we need to build our infrastructure for research. We’ve got some good research grants but we can do a lot more and we expect to do a lot more in the years ahead.
SHI: Being part of the Durham School is a transformative experience. Our programs exceed industry standards and focus on the entire life cycle of infrastructure systems – from design construction to operations. We are famous for our labs where students can test electrical, fire, security and plumbing systems for buildings; lighting systems for building interiors; and a structures lab where destructive testing uses a reaction wall that can resist 1 million pounds of pressure. These spaces invite exploration where students, faculty and industry representatives learn from each other.

Q: What difference has private support made?
A: O’HANLON: Private support has been used for student support and we attract really outstanding students. We also want to bring in a couple of nationally established researchers because they then mentor the good, young faculty we have in place and help them become nationally established researchers as well. It is also helpful for keeping up to date in our labs with equipment, which is fairly expensive.

Who was Charles Durham?

The namesake for The Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction, Charles W. Durham, was a third-generation civil engineer. He grew up in Ames, Iowa, and graduated from Iowa State University. He joined Omaha’s Henningson Engineering and was active in its growth, becoming president in 1950 when it was renamed Henningson, Durham & Richardson, Inc.

Under Durham’s leadership, the company later known as HDR Inc. grew to 1,700 employees with locations throughout the world. The highly regarded architecture, engineering and consulting firm has specialized in public works projects including military facilities and hospitals.

After selling the company in 1983, Durham and his wife, Margre, focused on charitable giving that greatly benefits the region, including the University of Nebraska.