Lab, job market driving increase in UW-Platteville construction management enrollment

"It's not like a lecture where you just sit and take notes. You're really getting into it. We do everything." 

- UW-Platteville construction management major Kira Goldbach

Enrollment in UW-Platteville's construction management program has more than doubled since its inception thanks to the university's hands-on building laboratory and a wide-open job market. 

In the seven years since the construction management major was created, the number of students has increased from 192 to 391 this semester, an increase of nearly 104 percent. Helping drive that growth this year is more than 100 first-year and transfer students.

"This is huge for our program," program coordinator Grethcen Bockenhauer said. "If you were to Google construction management, usually Platteville comes to the top."

Prior to 2020, the Department of Applied Engineering Technology Management offered construction management -- the art of supervising residential, commercial and infrastructure projects -- as an emphasis within the industrial technology management degree. Heading into the fall semester that year, the college won ...