Time Commitment and Work-Life Balance: The Fourth Most Common Question Students Ask Staff

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — When prospective and current students reach out to university staff and academic advisors, initial conversations typically center around basic admissions steps, tuition rates, and graduation timelines.However, analytics tracking across higher education student-success portals reveal that the fourth most common question students ask when exploring graduate programs is: “How many hours per week will I need to dedicate to my studies, and can I balance this program with a full-time job?”

For working professionals considering advanced education in fields like construction science, balancing career responsibilities, family commitments, and rigorous academic coursework is a primary deciding factor before submitting an application.

Understanding the Balance: Working Full-Time While Pursuing Graduate Studies

The question of time management and workload arises because the vast majority of graduate students in specialized professional tracks are actively employed full-time in the industry.

When students inquire about time commitments, academic advisors and faculty coordinators focus on several critical areas:

• Realistic Credit Loads: Advising working professionals to limit their initial enrollment to one or two courses per semester (typically 3 to 6 credit hours) to maintain a healthy work-school balance.
• Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Flexibility: Highlighting how structured virtual classes, evening lectures, and archived session recordings allow students to participate from job site trailers or home offices without sacrificing professional duties.
• Pace of Completion: Demonstrating how steady, manageable course pacing allows students to complete their master’s degree in a timeframe that fits their lifestyle—ranging from a accelerated one-year commitment for near full-time study to a flexible two-to-three-year timeline for working practitioners.

Step-by-Step Guidance: Evaluating Your Weekly Time Management

If you are evaluating whether you have the bandwidth to pursue an advanced degree while working full-time, structured planning is essential. Follow these steps to assess your schedule:

1. Audit Your Weekly Professional and Personal Schedule

Before registering for classes, map out a typical week to identify available study blocks. Consider:

• Workplace Flex Hours: Whether your employer supports professional development and allows flexibility for live evening classes.
• Family and Personal Commitments: Ensuring you carve out dedicated time for personal well-being outside of work and school.

2. Estimate Your Study-to-Credit Hour Ratio

As a general rule in graduate education, for every one hour spent in class, expect to spend two to three hours on independent reading, assignments, and group projects. For a standard 3-credit course, plan for roughly 6 to 9 hours of coursework per week.

3. Consult with Academic Advisors on Course Sequencing

Work with departmental advisors to map out your semester-by-semester course plan. They can help you avoid stacking heavy quantitative courses (like cost estimating and scheduling) during busy seasons in your professional career.

When to Consult an Academic Advisor Directly

While general workload guidelines apply to most students, certain circumstances require a personalized discussion with a program coordinator:

• Peak Construction Seasons: If your job involves heavy travel, seasonal project crunches, or multi-week site mobilizations that may overlap with midterms or finals.
• Accelerated Track Approvals: If you intend to take three or more classes per semester and need formal institutional guidance on balancing an intensive course load.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Can I complete my degree entirely while working a full-time construction job?
  Yes. The program is specifically structured for working industry professionals, utilizing live synchronous evening classes and recorded lectures to accommodate full-time work schedules.
• What is the recommended course load for someone working 40 hours a week?
  Advisors generally recommend starting with one or two courses (3 to 6 credit hours) during your first semester to gauge your workload capacity before taking on additional classes.
• What happens if a professional emergency pulls me away from a live lecture?
  Because courses provide access to session recordings alongside live delivery, working professionals can review missed material and stay on track with their coursework.

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When incoming students and prospective applicants interact with academic advisors and student services teams, common inquiries often begin with logistics like tuition rates, application deadlines, and campus housing. However, engagement data across university advising platforms indicates that the third most common question students ask when exploring the field of construction science is: “What background or prerequisite courses do I need if my undergraduate degree is in a different discipline?”

Because the construction industry attracts professionals from diverse academic backgrounds, including business,architecture, engineering, and the liberal arts, prospective graduate students frequently seek clarity on how their prior education aligns with advanced construction management studies.

Understanding Prerequisite Pathways and Academic Flexibility

The question typically arises as professionals and recent graduates look to pivot into construction management or validate practical field experience with advanced academic credentials.

When students inquire about academic entry requirements, university advisors and admissions coordinators focus on several key areas:

• Degree Versatility: Clarifying that students do not always need an undergraduate degree strictly in construction science to succeed; many successful candidates enter with degrees in business, finance, or general engineering.
• Core Competencies: Identifying foundational knowledge areas—such as basic cost estimating, scheduling, and project management principles—that ensure students can keep pace with rigorous graduate coursework.
• Bridging the Gap: Providing pathways for non-construction majors to acquire necessary foundational competencies through elective selections or leveling coursework.

Step-by-Step Guidance: Evaluating Your Background for Construction Science

If you are considering entering the field of construction science from a non-traditional background, evaluating your readiness involves a straightforward review of your transcripts and professional experience. Follow these steps to prepare your application:

1. Review Your Academic Transcript for Transferable Skills

Look closely at your undergraduate coursework to identify quantitative and management-oriented classes. Key areas of value include:

• Mathematics and Quantitative Analysis: Courses in college algebra, calculus, or statistics.
• Business and Management: Principles of accounting, economics, or organizational leadership.
• Technical Drawing or Design: Any prior exposure to computer-aided design, blueprint reading, or basic engineering concepts.

2. Highlight Relevant Field Experience

For applicants with professional background experience in construction, real-world exposure often bridges academic gaps. Be prepared to highlight:

• Years spent working as a field engineer, project coordinator, or specialty contractor estimator.
• Familiarity with on-site project workflows, subcontracting, or material procurement.

3. Consult Graduate Program Admissions Guidelines

Before submitting your application, review specific departmental admission requirements regarding standardized testing (such as GRE policies) and professional letters of recommendation.

When to Consult an Academic Advisor Directly

While general admissions guidelines provide a broad overview, certain situations require a personalized transcript evaluation with an academic advisor or program director:

• Non-Standard Degree Transcripts: If your undergraduate degree is from an international institution or a non-traditional discipline and you are unsure how course credits transfer.
• Mid-Career Career Transitions: If you are transitioning entirely out of a completely unrelated industry (such as education or healthcare) and need guidance on prerequisite leveling courses.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Can I enter a construction management graduate program with a business degree?Yes. Many graduate students enter the program with business or finance backgrounds, utilizing specialized electives to bridge the gap into technical construction concepts.
• Is professional experience required before applying?While programs welcome recent college graduates, an ideal profile often includes several years of industry experience or a strong foundational background in a related built-environment discipline.
• How do I verify if my specific undergraduate coursework satisfies prerequisite requirements?The most effective approach is to request an unofficial transcript review by connecting directly with the department’s academic advising team or program coordinator.

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Recent data from Texas A&M University’s 2026 Brand Health study shows the institution entering the new fiscal year from a position of growing brand strength, driven by high public trust and rising value perceptions.

Within the College of Architecture, leaders say the Center for Health Systems and Design is uniquely positioned to capitalize on these strengths. By advancing evidence-based design for hospitals, clinics, and long-term care facilities, the center delivers the tangible, real-world research impact that national audiences increasingly demand from higher education.

According to the Morning Consult study, Texas A&M holds the top spot for overall trust among national peer institutions, with 64% of U.S. adults and 77% of Texas adults expressing confidence in the university. Furthermore, health sciences research emerged in the report as the single highest-impact field for increasing public favorability, representing a key opportunity where no single institution currently dominates public perception.

“Health sciences research carries the strongest potential to build institutional prestige and public favorability,” the report noted. “The opportunity is to make Texas A&M’s distinctive research impact more immediately understood and top of mind.”

For the College of Architecture, the Center for Health Systems and Design serves as an interdisciplinary bridge between health care outcomes and the built environment. As health care systems nationwide face evolving economic and operational challenges, researchers at the center focus on architectural innovations that improve patient safety, optimize clinical workflows, and enhance community health systems.

The study also highlighted significant momentum in how the public perceives Texas A&M’s value and affordability. Overall value perception rose four points year over year to 48%, while public alignment with the university’s affordability has surged nine points since 2024 to 34%. Perceptions of value are highest among prospective students and current families, peaking at 73% among parents of current Aggies.

As higher education faces broader public scrutiny over cost and real-world relevance, the College of Architecture continues to emphasize career placement and practical research applications. The research study noted that 85% of U.S. adults view “conducting research that helps society” and “providing real-world learning for students’ future careers” as critical attributes of top universities.

Through the Center for Health Systems and Design, architecture and urban planning students participate directly in research initiatives alongside industry experts, equipping graduates with specialized skills for the health care design sector.

College administrators plan to leverage these findings by expanding visibility around health-related architectural research, demonstrating how design solutions directly support community wellbeing and reinforce the university’s broader value proposition.

The post Texas A&M Health Systems Center Anchors University’s Research Impact and Value appeared first on Texas A&M University College of Architecture.

When university students reach out to college offices and student-services desks, the single most frequent question is typically related to basic logistics like tuition costs or office hours. 

Students frequently seek guidance during off-hours, often peak times in the evening when campus advising offices are closed, to find out if they are maintaining sufficient credit momentum, registering for the right classes, or falling behind in their degree path. This comprehensive resource explores why students ask this question, what credit momentum means for your academic career, and how to utilize resources effectively when advisors are unavailable.

Understanding Credit Momentum: Why Students Worry About Being “On Track”

Credit momentum refers to the pace at which a student successfully completes college credits toward their educational objective. Data consistently shows that maintaining a steady accumulation of credits, traditionally 15 credit hours per semester or 30 credits per academic year, dramatically increases graduation rates, reduces overall educational debt, and prevents students from stalling out before earning their degree.

When students ask, “Am I on track with my registration or credit momentum?”, they are usually experiencing one of several common scenarios:

• The Credit-Hour Threshold Panic: Wondering whether dropping or failing a course will drop them below full-time status, affect their financial aid eligibility, or delay graduation by an entire year.
• Degree Roadmap Confusion: Trying to decipher complex institutional degree audits, prerequisite chains, and general education requirements without immediate human assistance.
• Post-Midterm Reality Checks: Realizing their current GPA or academic standing is slipping and wanting an immediate breakdown of what actions to take next.

Step-by-Step Guidance: What to Do When You Aren’t Sure If You’re on Track

If you find yourself questioning your academic progress outside of normal business hours, automated university tools and self-service portals can help you bridge the gap until you can meet with a professional advisor. Follow these structured steps to evaluate and protect your academic momentum:

1. Check Your Institutional Degree Audit System

Most universities provide an online degree planning or audit tool (such as Degree Works). Use your student login to review your progress tracker. Look specifically at:

• Completed vs. In-Progress Credits: Ensure your current enrollment matches your required milestones.
• Milestone Checkpoints: Check if you have completed gateway courses required before entering upper-division major coursework.

2. Calculate Your Semester and Cumulative GPA

If your concern stems from academic performance rather than credit hours, use your institution’s official GPA calculator.Remember the standard grading scale impact:

• Moving a grade from a C to a B or an A has a compounding positive effect on your cumulative GPA.
• Understand your university’s specific policy regarding retaking courses for grade replacement.

3. Consult Official Course Catalogs and Deadlines

Before making changes to your schedule (such as dropping a class), always cross-reference official academic calendar deadlines:

• Drop/Add Deadlines: Know the exact date by which you can drop a class without a permanent grade penalty (such as a “W”).
• Financial Aid Census Date: Ensure your credit load satisfies the minimum enrollment requirements for scholarships, grants, or federal loans.

When to Escalate to a Professional Advisor

While self-service tools and virtual portals are powerful for instant answers, immediate triage, and after-hours guidance,certain academic situations require direct human intervention:

• Academic Probation or Suspension Appeals: If your GPA has dropped below institutional thresholds and you need to file an appeal for financial aid or continued enrollment.
• Complex Major Changes: Switching majors late in your academic career, which may drastically alter your remaining credit requirements.
• Personal or Medical Hardships: If unexpected life events are interrupting your ability to maintain credit momentum, schedule an appointment directly with your college’s academic advising office or dean of students.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Can an automated system officially change my class schedule or drop a course for me?
  No. While digital tools can guide you through where to find the drop portal or explain the policies surrounding course changes, official schedule modifications must be completed through your student portal or registrar’s office.
• What should I do if my credit hours fall below full-time status?
  Always consult the financial aid office before dropping below full-time status (typically 12 undergraduate credit hours). Dropping below this threshold can immediately impact housing contracts, scholarships, and financial aid disbursements.
• How late can I access help if advising offices are closed?
  University websites equipped with virtual assistants provide 24/7 access to basic policy guidelines, registration FAQs, and deadline summaries, even when physical offices are locked.

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More than 35 years after graduating from Texas A&M University, Angela Hood ’90 is helping lead a project that brings together two fields central to her career: construction and workforce technology.

Hood, an Outstanding Alumna of the College of Architecture, is founder and executive chair of ThisWay Global, the company completing the future Reveille AI Compute Center (RACC) at the Texas A&M-RELLIS campus. 

Previously known as the Research and AI Compute Center, the facility is planned to provide artificial intelligence and high-performance computing resources for eligible academic, public-sector and industry users. Its first phase is scheduled for completion in summer 2027 and is designed to provide 20 megawatts of computing capacity.

ThisWay Global convened academic leaders, researchers, national defense representatives and industry partners for RACC On, an Oct. 20 working session at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center. The event introduced the center’s research, infrastructure and workforce-development goals.

Angela leads this complex initiative and uses her Texas A&M roots to guide her during difficult decisions.

Setting an Anchor with Construction Science

Hood graduated from the Department of Construction Science in 1990 and was recognized as a College of Architecture Outstanding Alumna in 2020. 

As an undergraduate, Hood founded the former School of Architecture Career Fair, where she developed the core methodology that would later inform ThisWay Global’s technology. After more than 20 years in the construction industry, she moved into artificial intelligence and software engineering to develop technology intended to help match people with jobs without bias.

In 2012, she formed a research and development team at the University of Cambridge in England. Four years later, she moved ThisWay Global’s headquarters to Austin.

Her work on the RELLIS facility reconnects her with the complex coordination familiar to Construction Science professionals. Data centers require careful planning of electrical systems, cooling, water management, construction schedules and facility operations.

Hood said the RACC is intended to support academic research as well as industry and health-related needs.

“We obviously needed to make sure that it wasn’t just research, but it was also going to be able to be used for industry, and the medical needs or the healthcare research needs that RACC will be able to support,” said Angela Hood. 

The facility will complete a previously unfinished data-center project on the northwest side of the RELLIS campus. ThisWay Global acquired the building in September 2026, allowing construction to resume.

Building Capacity at RELLIS

ThisWay Global CEO Stephan Fabel said reliable access to advanced computing resources has become a challenge for many organizations conducting artificial intelligence and other data-intensive research.

Project leaders identified potential applications in agricultural technology, health research, weather modeling and other fields that rely on large amounts of data. The center is expected to serve users whose work requires more computing capacity than is typically available through standard systems.

The first phase is designed to support 20 megawatts of computing capacity. Additional phases are projected to increase the facility’s total capacity to 73 megawatts.

Lionel Branscomb, who leads the project’s construction and infrastructure buildout, said the facility’s electrical design grew substantially during planning.

“The building was originally designed for 2.5 megawatts, but now we’re designed for 20 megawatts,” Branscomb said. “It’s a huge difference.”

The expansion requires additional power, cooling and supporting systems. The center is also planned to include a water-recapture and recycling system.

Preparing a Data-Center Workforce

Hood’s work also connects to Department of Construction Science efforts to prepare workers for specialized roles in data-center construction and other advanced-technology environments.

Through a federally supported workforce-development effort with the U.S. Department of Labor, the department tested eight-, 12- and 16-week training models over an 18-month period. The initiative examined how quickly participants, including recent high school graduates, could gain skills for positions associated with advanced-technology facilities.

According to project leaders, the eight-week model proved the most effective of the formats tested. The program is designed to prepare participants for roles such as junior project managers and other positions connected to data-center development and operations.

“We’ve focused on 10 different jobs right now, and these will be the first 10 that will be rolled out for the eight-week training,” Hood said.

For the College of Architecture, Hood’s career illustrates how a Construction Science education can lead to work across evolving industries and how growing demand for technology infrastructure is creating new opportunities for professionals who plan, build and operate complex facilities.

The post Construction Science Grad Helps Advance RELLIS Compute Center appeared first on Texas A&M University College of Architecture.

When a building wall begins to lose its ability to keep heat, cold or moisture out, the damage is often invisible. A wall can look intact while heat, humidity, sunlight and freeze-thaw cycles slowly weaken materials behind its surface.

Researchers at Texas A&M University and Penn State University are studying the hidden damage by exposing full wall systems to years’ worth of simulated weather in a laboratory chamber. 

Their goal is to help architects, construction managers, facility managers and policymakers make more informed decisions about durable materials, maintenance and energy performance as climate conditions become more extreme. 

A National Science Foundation award funds the three-year collaboration between Dr. Manish Dixit, an endowed professor in Texas A&M’s Department of Construction Science, and Dr. Julian Wang, a Texas A&M alumnus and a professor in Penn State’s Department of Architectural Engineering. The project began in January and is scheduled to run through June 2028.

Researchers are now establishing its testing methods and baseline measurements. Results showing how the walls degrade under accelerated exposure are expected within the next year.

The team presented its first paper this fall in the Net-Zero Future 2026 Conference in Darmstadt, Germany in Darmstadt, Germany, outlining the testing framework and baseline performance of both wall systems. The paper was co-authored by Texas A&M researchers Sejal Sanjay Shanbhag and Yasaman Norouzi and Penn State researchers Mohammad Elmi, Jessica Nicole Miklos and Hannah Yang.

“You are making decisions today that will control the performance for the next 100 years,” Dixit said.

Building Walls to Break Them

The researchers selected College Station, Texas, and State College, Pennsylvania, because their climates place different demands on building walls.

College Station represents a hot, humid environment where high temperatures and moisture can accelerate deterioration. State College represents a cold, humid environment where freezing and thawing add another form of stress.

Using regional housing data, the team selected wall assemblies common to each location: brick veneer walls in Texas and fiber-cement- or vinyl-sided walls in Pennsylvania. Like most exterior walls, each test wall has several layers that work together to block weather, manage moisture and insulate the building.

Researchers built 4-foot-by-4-foot wall prototypes to meet current building code standards and sent them to Penn State for testing.

Simulating Years of Exposure in Weeks

At Penn State, the wall specimens are installed in a walk-in chamber divided into indoor and outdoor sides. Solar-simulating lamps recreate heat and sunlight on the outdoor side, while the other side mimics indoor conditions. 

Instead of waiting years to observe normal deterioration, researchers cycle the walls through heat, cold, humidity and solar radiation patterns calibrated to represent a year or more of real conditions.

Developing the accelerated-weathering approach has been a major part of the research.

“One thing that has surprised us is how difficult it is to even define an appropriate accelerated weathering test for building-envelope durability under extreme weather,” Wang said. 

Standard durability tests typically examine one stressor at a time. However, a real heat wave can combine intense temperatures with intense sunlight at once. 

“The combined effect can be substantially different from what we would predict by simply adding the effects of the individual stressors,” Wang said.

Turning Wall Performance Into Repair and Energy Costs

The project is currently establishing testing methods and baseline performance for the two wall types. The team expects results on how the walls degrade under accelerated exposure within the next year.

As testing continues, Penn State researchers will assess wall performance at both the whole-wall and material levels. They are looking for cracks, air leaks and changes in the wall’s shape. They are also measuring how easily the wall transfers heat, reflects sunlight and retains its insulating value, known as R-value.

“A wall may continue to look perfectly functional while its thermal or moisture-control performance is gradually changing,” Wang said.

At Texas A&M, Dixit’s Environmental Sustainability and Resilience (ENSURE) Lab will use those measurements to estimate repair needs, long-term energy use and emissions.

The analysis considers two types of environmental impact. The first is embodied carbon: emissions from making, transporting and installing replacement materials. The second is the energy a building uses for heating and cooling as its walls lose insulating performance.

Dixit’s team will run those changes through energy models based on U.S. Department of Energy prototype homes. By comparing current conditions with projected 2050 and 2080 weather scenarios, the models can estimate how declining wall performance could affect a building’s energy use and emissions over decades.

Designing for Damage Before It Appears

The researchers hope their findings will help building professionals act before performance problems become visible. 

Dixit pointed to aging buildings as an example. When insulation or other wall components degrade, facilities may compensate by running air conditioning harder instead of addressing the underlying issue.

Better information about long-term material performance could help architects select wall systems that withstand repeated temperature swings and moisture exposure. The findings could also provide evidence to national organizations such as ASHRAE as they consider future building energy and insulation standards.

Dixit said the stakes may be particularly high for buildings with intensive cooling demands, such as data centers, where declining wall performance can add to already significant energy needs. They may also be high along the Texas Gulf Coast, where heat, humidity, flooding and storms can compound building risks.

“If you’re already spending $60 to $100 million on a building, $100,000 more for better materials is a small price for what it saves over the next 50 to 100 years,” he said.

But the framing behind the work, Wang said, treats resilience and sustainability as a single problem rather than two separate ones.

“We need buildings that can withstand a changing climate while also minimizing their long-term environmental impact,” Wang said.

As the testing continues, the team aims to give designers and building owners evidence they can use before hidden deterioration becomes a costly repair, an energy burden — or both.

The post The Hidden Cost of Extreme Weather is Inside Your Walls appeared first on Texas A&M University College of Architecture.

At the Texas A&M University College of Architecture, student learning extends far beyond traditional classroom lectures and studio desks. From your first semester to your final year, our programs integrate hands-on, experiential learning that directly addresses real-world community challenges.

Through signature initiatives like Texas Target Communities (TxTC), students and faculty collaborate directly with underserved Texas towns, counties and nonprofits that lack the staff or budget to plan ahead. Whether you are developing comprehensive long-range plans for communities recovering from natural disasters like Ingram, evaluating sustainable housing prototypes, or participating in service-learning studios, you will grapple with genuine human and environmental problems.

Key avenues for real-world application across our departments Architecture, Construction Science, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning include:

• Community-Engaged Studios and Classes: Partnering directly with municipal leaders, neighborhood task forces and regional organizations to gather data, conduct stakeholder interviews and propose actionable solutions.
• Cutting-Edge Research Labs: Engaging in high-impact projects within specialized facilities like the Construction Automation, Safety and Education (CASE) Lab, where students explore advanced technologies such as virtual reality, robotics and AI-driven drone collaboration.
• Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Teaming up with peers across multiple disciplines—combining design,engineering, construction management and social science—to mirror how modern architectural and planning industries operate in the professional world.

These experiences ensure that when you graduate, you aren’t just leaving with theoretical knowledge; you possess a tangible portfolio of impactful work, practical field experience and a deep commitment to civic readiness that prepares you to shape stronger communities across Texas and beyond.

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A tornado can level a neighborhood in minutes and for the families who lived there, getting back home can take years.

Since 1988, Texas A&M University’s Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center (HRRC) has studied what shapes that timeline: the decisions that put communities at risk before a disaster and the recovery that follows.

Based in the College of Architecture, the center describes itself as the nation’s first research center dedicated to vulnerability reduction and long-term recovery.

Dr. Michelle Meyer, a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, has directed the HRRC since 2019. About 70 graduate and undergraduate students gain hands-on experience through its research and outreach each year, according to the center.

Filling a Gap

Dr. Philip Berke ’81, now a research professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, wrote the proposal for the center as an early-career planning faculty member. The college’s new dean, he said, wanted hazards and disaster research to become a major focus.

That proposal became the HRRC, which the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents established in November 1988. Dr. Dennis Wenger, then co-director of the University of Delaware’s Disaster Research Center, the oldest in the country, became its first director the next year.

At the time, Wenger said, most disaster research focused on preparedness and emergency response, the things that “blew up and blew down.”

“Recovery was ignored,” Wenger said. “There was very little research on recovery and very little research on mitigation.”

The new center’s name spelled out its focus: hazard reduction, or mitigation, before disasters and recovery after them. Its place in a college of planners, architects and builders tied that work to decisions about where and how communities grow.

As disasters have grown larger and more frequent, Meyer said, more researchers have turned to recovery and mitigation topics.

“Those questions that we started with in 1988 are finally getting their due,” she said.

Almost four decades later, the center still follows the two halves of its name: helping communities lower their risk before disasters and understanding what it takes to rebuild after them.

Reducing Risk Before Disaster

Much of that risk takes shape long before a storm arrives.

Since the center’s creation, Berke said, planning has helped shift disaster research “from viewing disasters mainly as extreme events to understanding them as consequences of decisions made long before a disaster strikes.”

Those decisions can work against each other. 

A community’s hazard mitigation plan might mark land as too dangerous for new development, Meyer said, while its economic development plan targets the same area for growth.

The Plan Integration for Resilience Scorecard (PIRS), a method developed at Texas A&M and extended by Dr. Siyu Yu ’19 and Dr. Matthew Malecha ‘19, HRRC core faculty fellows, systematically and spatially evaluates a community’s plans and policies to find those conflicts. Malecha and Yu run the PIRS Lab within the HRRC to further research, education, and community collaboration, and were recently awarded an external grant by the Department of Homeland Security (PI: Dr. Siyu Yu, Co-PIs: Jaimie Masterson and Dr. Matthew Malecha) to continue this work with additional communities.

But many rural communities lack any plans that can help them reduce hazard risk. Through the $2.9 million Texas Mitigation Planning Initiative, a partnership with the college’s Texas Target Communities program, the center is now helping rural Texas regions write hazard mitigation plans. Those plans identify steps to reduce damage before disasters and are required for certain federal disaster funding.

When a disaster is on its way, moving people out of harm’s way requires understanding how people will travel, if they can, and where to. HRRC researchers have long helped Texas coastal counties plan hurricane evacuations, work led by former directors Dr. Michael Lindell and Dr. Walter Gillis Peacock.

Even with good planning, disasters still happen. Studying these impacts helps communities make decisions about reducing future risk. A study led by doctoral student Jiang Zheng ’23 found that 34 youth camps licensed in Texas in 2025 face greater flood exposure than Camp Mystic, where campers and counselors were taken in the July 2025 floods.

Rebuilding After Disaster

One misconception their research pushes back on, Meyer said, is that recovery is quick.

“For most people, this is a year at minimum,” she said. “For some people, it’s five, 10 years. For others, they never come back.”

Much of Meyer’s research examines social capital, which she called “the academic word for ‘who you know matters.'”

That might mean a friend with a spare room or a neighbor who watches the children while parents stand in line to fill out disaster aid paperwork. Neighborhoods with strong ties tend to rebuild faster, she said.

After an EF4 tornado struck Granbury’s Rancho Brazos neighborhood on May 15, 2013, local nonprofits, churches and businesses formed the Hood County Long Term Recovery Committee.

The committee managed donations, brought in surplus modular homes from Fort Hood, now Fort Cavazos, and rebuilt them for families who had lost their houses. A 2015 Texas Senate resolution credited it with returning residents to their homes about six months sooner than after most disasters.

Meyer, then a postdoctoral researcher at the HRRC, studied the recovery through a National Science Foundation rapid-response grant.

Marilyn Luton, who helped lead the local effort and is now board president of Mission Granbury, said Meyer’s questions often gave the group “a direction we hadn’t thought about.”

Growing the Field

In the 1990s, the HRRC led the first round of a National Science Foundation program that pairs promising early-career faculty, many new to disaster research, with leading scholars in their fields.

Meyer was a fellow in the program’s fourth round, from 2014 to 2016. She is now one of four co-leads of its sixth.

Dr. Gavin Smith ’88, ’92, ’95, a professor at North Carolina State University, said Wenger became his adviser after his first dissertation chair left Texas A&M.

“I would not be working in this space had it not been for the time spent at the HRRC,” Smith said.

Smith, Berke, Wenger and Luton are among the former leaders, former students and community partners on an advisory committee the center convened this fall.

When Meyer returned to the HRRC in 2018, she called former students and asked them to describe the center in one word. The most common answer was “home.”

Meyer said the center aims to be that kind of place for students, faculty and community members, where people can “be cared for in good times, and in dark times like post-disaster.”

Asked the same question this fall, Smith answered with one word: “Family.”

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Before dawn on July 4, 2025, the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes. More than six inches of rain fell upstream in about three hours, and the surge reached Ingram, a Hill Country town of about 1,800 people west of Kerrville, while many residents slept. Kerr County had no flood warning system on the river.

The flooding took more than 130 lives across Texas, making it one of the deadliest inland floods in U.S. history. In Ingram, homes and RV parks along the river were swept away. A year later, in July 2026, the town flooded again and declared a local state of emergency.

Ingram has no city manager, and like many small Texas towns, it has no budget for a private planning consultant.

For more than 30 years, Texas Target Communities (TxTC) has worked with communities like Ingram, pairing them with students and faculty to produce the plans, designs and assessments they could not otherwise afford.

TxTC is a research center based in the College of Architecture and led by Jaimie Hicks Masterson ’06, ’13, the program’s director. It began in 1993 as Texas Target Cities, a small service-learning initiative, and was later renamed to reflect its work with rural counties, underserved urban areas and nonprofits.

Since expanding in 2013, the program has partnered with 74 communities, hosted 300 community meetings and engaged more than 250 faculty members and 2,500 students.

How Communities Get Involved

Communities apply to the program, and many are referred by past partners. A city, county, economic development corporation or nonprofit describes its need and staff match the project with faculty and classes that have relevant expertise.

“We believe we need to be invited to a place,” said Jeewasmi Thapa, the program’s senior program coordinator. 

Each project is guided by a community task force of local leaders and residents.

“We are not free,” said John Cooper, professor of practice in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning and the program’s former director. “However, we come at a price that is significantly lower than what a low-resource, low-capacity community would have to pay a consultant. We are a resource for places that have no place else to go.”

Ingram contacted the program several months after the 2025 flooding. The city wanted help writing a comprehensive plan, a long-range guide for a city’s policies and investments over the next 20 years. The 18-month project launched this fall.

Students, Faculty and Communities 

Masterson said the program serves three groups at once. It trains students in community engagement, connects faculty with community partners and delivers the plans, designs and assessments communities have identified as priorities.

Students join through courses across the college, paid research positions and internships, which often carry a project past the end of a semester so communities receive finished work.

“I think the real benefit to this program is that it is a fully human connection,” Masterson said. “Students are going to the communities, they’re meeting face to face with community members and residents, and they are grappling with real-world human problems.”

For Ingram, nine classes from three colleges are contributing. A graduate community engagement course taught by Xinyu Fu, assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, and Cooper hosted an Oct. 23 event to gather residents’ priorities. Other courses are taking on flood mitigation, transportation, historic preservation and the revival of downtown Ingram along the river.

For many students, it is their first time working with a real community.

“During class, it has been extremely insightful to see the levels of coordination and communication required to gather valuable community input,” said Maggie Quinn ’27, a master of urban planning student and president of the Association of Student Planners. “This is our first class experience working with a real community, so it has brought out a variety of perspectives on how we can best engage with the City of Ingram in a way that is thoughtful and productive.”

Results Across Texas 

In Nolanville, city officials credited a 2015 comprehensive plan developed with the program for helping the city secure more than $2.6 million in funding in five years.

Since 2013, students have contributed nearly 466,000 hours of service, valued at roughly $14 million. Masterson said the Educational Partnerships for Innovation in Communities Network regularly points to Texas Target Communities as a model of deep community engagement.

“In lay terms, I’d say we give the university receipts,” Cooper said. “We show proof of concept, proof of mission.”          

“I think we could all agree that our dream is that we would have greater impact in communities across Texas, and more students with civic readiness positioned to go on in their careers to continue to have great impact in Texas,” Masterson said. “Our ability to scale would be a dream, that we would be a go-to source for this type of work on campus, across the system and beyond.”

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Buc-ee’s founder and CEO Arch “Beaver” Aplin III ’80 returned to Aggieland on Tuesday, Nov. 3, to share the story behind one of Texas’ most recognizable brands. His keynote capped the daylong Texas A&M College of Architecture Showcase, which explored how Aggies are helping shape the built places and communities Texans experience every day.

Now in its fourth year, Showcase gave visitors a look at the people and disciplines behind the built environment: the buildings, outdoor spaces, neighborhoods and infrastructure where people live, work, learn, travel and connect. 

Nearly 1,900 students, faculty, staff, former students, industry professionals, community members and campus partners participated in the College’s largest Showcase to date, representing more than 10 Texas A&M colleges and schools.

Throughout the Rudder Theatre Complex, attendees explored sessions, hands-on demonstrations, information tables and the featured Aplin Center gallery. Centered on the future Aplin Center, this year’s Showcase highlighted how architecture, construction science, landscape architecture and urban planning work together to shape Texas’ future.

“Today’s program has shown the breadth of the college, but also how closely its disciplines connect,” said Dr. Angela K. Wilson, vice president for research. “The challenges facing Texas and our communities rarely fit within one discipline. Progress often begins by bringing together people who understand different parts of the same problem.”

Aplin Returns to Aggieland

During the keynote and Sesquicentennial Speaker Series conversation with Texas A&M President Susan Ballabina,  Aplin reflected on the Aggie community that shaped his experience as a student.

Aplin earned his bachelor’s degree in building construction — now construction science — from the College of Architecture in 1980. He recalled arriving in College Station from Lake Jackson and being deeply moved by its campus culture, which stayed with him long after graduation.

“Being a student here was a phenomenal experience for me … the people, the professors, the experience and the friends I still have to this day from Texas A&M University,” Aplin said.

After an unexpected change in his post-graduation plans, Aplin opened his first Buc-ee’s convenience store in Lake Jackson in 1982. The Texas-based travel-center brand has become iconic for its customer service, quality food and clean restrooms.

While fielding questions from the audience, Aplin encouraged students to stay open to opportunities as their own careers take shape.

“You don’t have to have it all figured out,” he said. “But you do have to be curious, and you can’t be lazy, and you have to take action.”

Buzz around Aplin’s visit extended to Rudder Exhibit Hall, where the Texas A&M × Buc-ee’s Pop-Up brought students, families and visitors together for photos with Buc-ee the Beaver and a limited-edition sesquicentennial T-shirt.

The pop-up marked the third release in the Texas A&M and Buc-ee’s co-branded merchandise collection. Texas A&M is the first location — and the only university campus — to sell Buc-ee’s merchandise and products outside of its travel centers.

Aplin Center Connects Texas A&M’s Legacy and Future

A centerpiece of this year’s Showcase, the future Aplin Center will be an immersive learning hub, research facility and campus visitor center for students, faculty, industry partners and prospective Aggies. Funded by a $60 million gift from Aplin, the three-story facility is scheduled to open in February 2028.

The center will bring together programs in hospitality, hotel management and tourism; marketing; food and beverage research; and retail and customer experience. It will support hands-on learning, industry-partnered research and serve as a new gateway site for Texas A&M.

“The visitor experience that our prospective students will have when they travel to the Aplin Center will be unlike anything in the country,” Ballabina said. “It is going to be a game changer for Texas A&M University.”

An interactive gallery and special panel discussion gave attendees a closer look at the project’s creative decisions. Emily Winters, principal in charge at DLR Group, said the center is designed to mirror how connected industries operate beyond campus.

“We’re going to take those pieces that all interact with the food and beverage industry, and we’re going to weave them together in the same way that they work out in the real world,” Winters said.

Aplin said his support for the center reflects a commitment to future generations and the Aggie culture that shaped his own experience.

“I just couldn’t be happier and more proud of it,” Aplin said. “I just can’t wait for everybody to go there when we cut the ribbon and do the opening.”

Architects, landscape architects, construction professionals, university leaders and industry partners worked together to shape the Aplin Center around its legacy live oak trees. The building will have a hybrid structure of mass timber, concrete and steel. The team also worked with the Texas A&M Forest Service and East Texas suppliers to source southern yellow pine for its structural elements.

Anthony Markese, design principal in charge at Pickard Chilton Associates, explained that the use of timber will make the Aplin Center naturally warm and welcoming. Markese said timber buildings have a rich history because they can last centuries.

“For a place that’s celebrating 150 years, a timber building that can bridge to the future but also make a connection to the past, … it feels so fitting for A&M and so fitting for the site, which is in a way a gateway to the future,” Markese said.

Innovation on Display

The same spirit of collaboration was visible in the Exhibit Hall, where hands-on demonstrations and research presentations showed how innovation can improve everyday experiences.

Master of Architecture students in the Health Systems and Design program invited visitors to step inside a full-scale cardboard mock-up of a surgical room. The exhibit demonstrated how details such as movement, visibility, comfort and stress reduction can influence the experience of patients and healthcare providers.

Nearby, visitors tried on exoskeletons that support construction workers during physically demanding tasks.

“Showcase demonstrates the power of connecting disciplines, people and ideas,” said Dr. Ivy Hu, dean of the College of Architecture. “Our students, faculty and former students are putting Aggie Core Values into action and applying critical thinking and collaboration to help shape stronger communities throughout Aggieland, across Texas and beyond.”

One of the day’s most immersive experiences was an award-winning virtual-reality demonstration led by Dr. Yewande Abraham, associate professor in the Department of Construction Science. Visitors stepped into a simulated construction site to see how drones, laser scanners, GPS and data analytics can help teams make better-informed decisions. Abraham received the People’s Choice Award for best demonstration.

Forty-nine student research posters and 16 oral presentations highlighted additional ideas from across the College. Fazel Nasserzadeh, a doctoral student in construction science, received the best oral presentation award for research on making repetitive construction work more predictable and efficient. Boshra Akhozheya, a doctoral student in architecture, received the best poster presentation award for her work on energy-efficient building retrofits.

Together, the projects showed how College of Architecture students and faculty are pairing creativity with research and new tools to improve the buildings, job sites and communities Texans rely on.

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