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Engineering degrees
need accreditation
The section in the
June issue on Engineering/Information Technology Schools
was helpful up to a point. But it failed to mention
accreditation of the degree programs by the Accreditation
Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). This oversight
can be a fatal flaw for naive students and parents.
Only degree programs accredited by ABET are accepted
by many engineering employers and by most state licensing
boards for engineers.
Most of the programs listed by Virginia
Business do not have ABET accreditation, which is difficult
to obtain. Old Dominion University is suffering through
yet another painful ABET evaluation visit this fall,
which is mandatory on a periodic basis. Every technical
employer in the United States knows that a graduate
of an ABET engineering program has been educated to
a standard backed by more than twenty major engineering
societies and the U.S. Department of Education. Other
degrees are doubtful. ABET degrees are available from
Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, Virginia Military
Institute, ODU, George Mason, Hampton, Christopher Newport
and Virginia Commonwealth universities.
The commonwealth has recently been treated
to turmoil at its largest state engineering program,
VDOT, (Virginia Department of Transportation) as it
finally faced up to a longstanding attitude of denial
about engineering credentials. Most of the people VDOT
has labeled (and paid) as engineers do not have an accredited
engineering education. Very few of these “engineers”
have a state Professional Engineer (P.E.) license although
many exercise responsibilities that demand a licensed
engineer under Virginia’s own state law. It is
as if the largest state hospitals were staffed with
state-paid physicians, most of whom had no accredited
medical degree and no state medical license.
Engineering and technology pervades
our society and our economy. Virginia must stay abreast
of its growth or fall behind with devastating results.
But these subjects are very complex and change rapidly.
The accreditation of engineering and engineering technology
programs in our colleges by ABET is a gold standard
which represents the best efforts of the national engineering
community. The state P.E. license is another credential
backed by all 50 state legislatures. It is foolish to
ignore these generally accepted credentials when considering
alternate paths to prepare for a technical career, as
many thousands have learned too late. Parents and prospective
students need to ask these questions before time and
money are spent on a college program which may not be
what it appears.
Louis L. Guy Jr., P.E.
Norfolk
EDITOR’S NOTE: Guy is a
past president of the Virginia Society of Professional
Engineers and a former member of the ABET board. The
organization’s Web site, www.abet.org,
lists all engineering programs in the U.S. that are
currently accredited.
Virginia
Business - September 2003
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