“Supplemental to the Middle States Association accreditation of the college, these distinctive accreditations by ABET highlight our outstanding engineering degrees,” said W. Vic Maconachy, vice president for academic affairs. “Students should know that we are providing them with the best education possible, and that we reach out to accrediting bodies like ABET to ensure we are indeed offering a challenging, worthwhile and up-to-date degree program.”
ABET accreditation demonstrates a program’s commitment to providing its students with a quality education. Accreditation is a voluntary, peer-review process that requires programs to undergo comprehensive, periodic evaluations. The evaluations are conducted by teams of volunteer professionals working in industry, government, academia, and private practice within the ABET disciplines focus on program curricula, faculty, facilities, institutional support, and other important areas.
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 is used by registration, licensure, and certification boards to screen applicants.
ABET is a not-for-profit organization, owned and operated by its more than 25 professional and technical member societies. An internationally respected organization with some 1,500 volunteers, ABET has set the higher-educational standards in its fields for nearly 75 years. More information about ABET, its member societies, and the evaluation criteria used to accredit programs can be found at www.abet.org.