Civil engineering program accredited by ABET
Janel Shoun-Smith |
Civil engineering program accredited by ABET
The Lipscomb University Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering’s Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering has been accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, the recognized accreditor of college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering and engineering technology.
ABET accreditation demonstrates a program’s commitment to providing its students with a quality education.
“ABET accreditation will be immensely valuable for our civil engineering graduates,” said Joe Morgan, chair of the civil engineering program. “Civil engineers deal with issues that are related to public health and safety on the job every day, so graduating from an ABET-accredited program that prepares them to be licensed as registered professional engineers is of great importance.”
ABET accreditation applies retroactively to the program’s first graduates in 2012 and 2013. The program, created in spring 2010, currently has 38 declared majors.
Accreditation is a voluntary, peer-review process that requires programs to undergo comprehensive, periodic evaluations. The evaluations, conducted by teams of volunteer professionals working in industry, government, academe and private practice within the ABET disciplines, focus on program curricula, faculty, facilities, institutional support and other important areas. Lipscomb’s formal accreditation process began in 2013 with a request for evaluation.
“This is something we have been striving for since the civil engineering program’s establishment,” said College of Engineering Dean Justin Myrick. “This honor speaks to the strength of our faculty, and I’m so grateful for all their hard work since we began the accreditation process in 2013.”
One of the key elements of ABET accreditation is the requirement that programs continuously improve the quality of education provided. As part of this continuous improvement requirement, programs set specific, measurable goals for their students and graduates, assess their success at reaching those goals, and improve their programs based on the results of their assessment.
In addition to providing colleges and universities a structured mechanism to assess, evaluate and improve their programs, accreditation also helps students and their parents choose quality college programs, enables employers and graduate schools to recruit graduates they know are well-prepared and assists registration, licensure, and certification boards in screening applicants.
ABET is a not-for-profit organization, owned and operated by its more than 30 professional and technical member societies. An internationally respected organization with some 2,200 volunteers, ABET has set the higher-educational standards in its fields for more than 80 years. More information about ABET, its member societies and the evaluation criteria used to accredit programs can be found at www.abet.org.
With the civil engineering accreditation, all three of the Raymond B. Jones College of Engineering’s undergraduate programs are now ABET accredited.
For more information about Lipscomb’s Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering, visit www.lipscomb.edu/engineering.