Ten evaluators from the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology visited the College of Engineering from Oct. 25 to Oct. 28 and left after granting all six of the college’s programs of study the maximum level of approval.
The maximum accreditation a program can receive is a ‘full six years accreditation with no weaknesses or deficiencies.’ This assessment means the programs are currently of high quality and have shown evidence of adaptability to future technological improvements, according to the board’s website.
ENG Dean David K. Campbell said he was glad his college ‘measured up successfully’ to other programs and evaluators gave the ENG programs high marks.
‘It is very important to everyone associated with our college that we retain our accreditation,’ Campbell said in an email. ‘I feel that it is very important to have accredited programs, for it indicates that our instructional materials, facilities, faculty, students and infrastructure have been compared with an absolute standard of quality.’
ENG is expected to continuously examine its programs to fulfill requirements and must prepare a report by June.
Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Chairman John Baillieul said in an email that the accreditation process actually begins with the creation of ‘program self-studies,’ which are 250-page reports that give the details on department facilities, faculty credentials and course content.
A continual focus on improvement ensures that BU programs will remain accredited, which includes developing a mission statement and corresponding set of objectives contracted this year.
‘[The mission statement] is like motherhood and apple pie things that anyone would believe in,’ biomedical engineering professor and Faculty Counsel Chair Herbert Voigt said in an email.
The four ENG programs of study aerospace and mechanical, biomedical, electrical and computer and manufacturing all received visits from the board’s evaluators.
The examinations included student, faculty, alumni and Department Advisory Board interviews, assessments of course texts, student projects, graded homework assignments and exams. The evaluation team visiting BU included a team leader, three observers and an evaluator for each program, each from professional engineering societies.
The ABET constitution says its goals are the ‘promotion and advancement of engineering education with a view to furthering the public welfare through the development of the better educated and qualified engineer, engineering technologist, engineering technician and others engaged in engineering or engineering-related work,’ according to the board’s website.
However, Voigt said U.S. News and World Report does not use ABET as a measure in ranking engineering programs because some ranked colleges and universities may not have degrees offered for ranked programs. Everywhere else, ABET accreditation has become a standard measure of the quality of undergraduate engineering programs, he said.
Although no BU programs received less than satisfactory reports, those that do are granted shorter-term accreditation in order to allow the board more time to closely monitor its improvement. No program can lose accreditation in a single visit from ABET evaluators, Campbell said.
ABET Inc. is an independent assessment organization currently accrediting about 2,500 programs at 550 U.S. colleges. This process assures the engineering industry that undergraduate students leaving these programs will be well informed with appropriate information, according to the board’s website.
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