With the increasing demands for resilient developments due to the continuing threats of natural and man-made disasters, Architecture/Engineering/Construction (AEC) education shall be at the forefront of preparing future workforces with advanced knowledge about sustainable and resilient designs. Given that, traditional defense structures alone can hardly protect the vulnerable communities, particularly against flood disasters, there is a pressing need to explore adaptive and innovative solutions and embrace them in AEC education. Safe-to-Fail is such a resilient design strategy that anticipates failures during infrastructure systems planning, thus accommodating innovative strategies and reducing the impact of natural disasters. Therefore, this research advocates incorporating the resilient Safe-to-Fail concept in the AEC curricula to cultivate infrastructure resilience knowledge among the future minority engineering workforces. The objectives of this study are to: (1) identify the factors influencing AEC students' perceptions towards learning Safe-to-Fail; and (2) investigate students' pedagogical preferences to incorporate the Safe-to-Fail concept in AEC curricula. To achieve these objectives, the study developed a framework including a comprehensive lecture on Safe-to-Fail and its applications followed by an interactive discussion session and a survey to capture students' experiences, expectations, and perceptions. The framework was implemented in a cross-listed Sustainable Approach to Construction course in an educational institution located in a hurricane-prone state. 55 AEC students who were registered in the course participated in the framework and shared their level of interest as well as a preferred pedagogical approach to integrating the Safe-to-Fail concept in the curricula through the survey. The findings indicated that most of the participating students, mainly minorities, preferred to learn the Safe-to-Fail concept as a portion of an elective course and that the choice of learning such emerging concept is significantly correlated to the student's age, duration spent in the program, and prior knowledge of Safe-to-Fail. This study fills in the literature gaps through shedding light on the significance of integrating emerging and effective design strategy Safe-to-Fail as part of the teaching effort to AEC students particularly the underrepresented minorities. Integrating Safe-to-Fail in the curricula can foster disaster resilience knowledge and skills within the AEC minority students thus nurturing their ability to contribute to a sustainable and resilient built environment as well as provide an edge for future competitive careers.
