UTPB has pushed its Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology timeline to 2024 to maximize its chances for success and President Sandra Woodley and Dean of the College of Engineering George Nnanna met with 30 to 40 chemical and electrical engineering students Monday to discuss the situation.
But students were still confused and concerned after that meeting.
“When I met with the students,” Woodley said, “we explained to them that the original plan was to go for ABET accreditation in the fall of ‘23. Of course you already know we’re accredited through SACS COC (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges), so our primary accreditation is in place.”
“ABET accreditation is an extra (piece) that we care about and want to pursue, but it’s important to pursue it at a time when we have the highest probability of success.
“So we had some experts (and) others take a look at the program and I made a determination that our best chance of success was to give ourselves one more year on the electrical and the chemical before we go up for ABET accreditation,” Woodley said.
“There’s no downside to waiting one year other than the fact that it takes a little bit longer. The students who are in the pipeline to graduate within a two-year window will automatically be grandfathered into that ABET designation, so even under the revised timeline all students will have that designation, if we’re successful at securing it,” Woodley said, noting that seven students graduated last spring and are currently working.
“We will pull them in, as well, through a waiver process that reissues their degrees so long as the curriculum stays the same over the two years,” she said.
“The bottom line is this one-year delay gives us our best chance of success at securing the ABET accreditation and it doesn’t impact the students at all. They will all be grandfathered in, or pulled in through a waiver.
“SACS accreditation, the accreditation we currently have, allows them to sit for their licensing exam. All of the licensure exams, the fundamentals of engineering that you’re able to sit for with SACS accreditation, you don’t need ABET accreditation for that,” Woodley said.
The accreditation process takes 12 to 18 months and includes eight criteria.
Students said the professors knew in advance that the timeline had been delayed.
“I think the decision to push it back has only happened in the last couple of months as we’ve been reviewing everything. The faculty, like the students, would like it to happen on the original timeline and I wish it could happen on the original timeline, too. I just think it’s not worth the risk of not being successful with ABET accreditation,” Woodley added.
She said the mechanical and petroleum engineering are up for ABET reaccreditation.
“So that will go on as scheduled,” Woodley said.
“Between now and the next six months … we’ll be taking the original plan for chemical and electrical (and) updating that. We’ll get some extra consultant help to figure out what we need to do to give ourselves the best chance to be successful and then we’ll work toward success in fall of 2024,” Woodley said.
Not getting into specifics, she said there were several pieces in the eight criteria where they thought they might have some weaknesses based on expert evaluation and internal analysis.
“We need to make sure we have enough resources and have the right faculty in place,” Woodley said. “There are student components on the success of the students and how they’re doing. I think we’re in relatively good shape, but not optimally yet, so we want to take all eight criteria and make sure we can shore up any potential deficiencies.”
She added that it’s understandable that there is disappointment. “But I think it’s also really important to continue to evaluate and re-evaluate so we don’t impact the students in the program negatively. We think we’ll be in much better shape a year from now,” Woodley said.
She said it was important to note that the seven graduates from last spring all have jobs in the Permian Basin.
Kandus Box, a senior in electrical engineering, said Monday’s meeting started with students and professors.
“Our president did not come to us. We came to them. It first started Oct. 6. One of our classmates in electrical engineering heard from another professor in one of his courses, who was a petroleum engineering professor, that chemical and electrical engineering ABET accreditation was being pushed back with no given timeline,” Box said. “That spiraled throughout the class. When that one student told all of us we were like, heck to the no, because two years ago, when I was a sophomore, I first found out that electrical engineering was not ABET-accredited because we were a new program and had not had our first graduates.
“I was very concerned and I was going to switch to a program that was ABET-accredited,” Box said. “ABET to engineering programs is the golden ticket. And besides it being the golden ticket, it is the absolute bare minimum qualification for any job. When we graduate, we’re going to be looking for jobs and every job we have seen or know of required us graduating from an ABET-accredited program.
“The dean of engineering has told us many times that he was on the ABET accreditation board and everyone was super optimistic. By the time we had our first graduates, we would go and roll into accreditation; we would send an application and it would be a go and be approved. And then we would be grandfathered back into it,” Box said.
“So I, just like the rest of my classmates, trusted the dean and our professors and we stayed in electrical engineering. Fast forward to now. When we found out, we first went to our professors in electrical engineering and asked, is this true? Because we heard about this through the grapevine, not from you.
“And they were like yes, it is true. You need to go to … speak with our dean. We have nothing to say. Well, frankly, they didn’t say anything. So then we went to the dean that day, Oct. 6, and had a meeting with him. He then confirmed it was true that ABET accreditation was being pushed back,” Box said.
The students then wanted to know when they were going to be told about the delay.
“So the professor said, guys, we need to schedule a meeting for today, Monday (Oct. 10), so I can have the president involved,” Box said. “He said he needed more information. We’re like okay, get ‘er done. So here we are today. We had a meeting at 2. It lasted about an hour. But I believe, bottom line, it was still rocky and unsure.
“We were basically grilling the president, asking her why, when and how this has happened and when in the world was she going to tell us. Once again, we heard this through the grapevine, which we do not appreciate because this is an education, not free but earned.
“So she basically said that they do plan to move forward with this accreditation in 2024. And all of us students in that room, it’s okay, because y’all will be grandfathered in. It’s okay. We’re optimistic it will work. And then we’re like, okay, well, can you tell us why? Or when you were going to tell us this?”
UTPB Provost Susan Ganter drafted a letter and emailed it to all electrical and chemical engineering students Oct. 7 indicating they would be fine and all the first graduates from chemical and electrical engineering have secured jobs.
Box, who doesn’t have a degree yet and is working part-time at an engineering firm said, “Job opportunities are here. They are abundant. But that is not why we’re going to get an education and an engineering degree. We’re going here with the promise of accreditation, ABET accreditation, and that is not being offered to us.”
Box said ABET accreditation for an engineering degree program “is the minimum standard that needs to be met in order to take our fundamentals exam right out of school.
“From there we can have four years of experience working under a professional engineer of any company, then take our professional exam and become a professional engineer who is licensed,” she said
“That is essentially what everyone wants — the golden ticket; the golden standard. And that is what we expect, paying for an education at an engineering program at a university.”
Kelby Lang, also a senior in electrical engineering, said Woodley seemed confident about ABET accreditation. Asked what he got out of the meeting, Lang said he was mostly confused because of how different the content of the meeting was compared to the letter from Ganter.
“That was that letter diminishing the ABET accreditation and saying basically, it won’t affect us whatsoever,” Lang said.
He added that it seemed there were promises he didn’t know if Woodley would be able to keep.
“It’s upsetting because they clearly hid the information from us and didn’t want it to get out. My professors seemed scared to talk to me about it; just to all of us about it,” Lang said.
He said this semester the mood completely changed.
“So the communication wasn’t there and then it seems like they were deliberately not communicating what had happened,” Lang said.
He added that they found out from a petroleum professor who was teaching about ABET accreditation in a class called professional practice. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Lang said.
He added that the program at UTPB is very strong and the professors are amazing. Lang said what’s happened has bonded the students as a group.
“I wish the professors had come to us earlier, but I understand that maybe there’s a bit of fear there. I hope the environment gets better for them. I don’t want them to be in a toxic environment. But I think they believe we can get ABET-accredited right now, so for us not to get those answers in this meeting today, it’s frustrating,” Lang said.
Lang is from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His parents live in the Basin. “My dad is an engineer, so he understands ABET accreditation,” the student said.
“I was working as an electrical technician and decided I wanted to go back to school to pursue an engineering degree with my previous experience being really relatable.
“It was decided between my wife and me that if we moved down here, I could afford to go to school by living with my parents for four years. I knew if I got good grades, if I could get scholarships and that would reduce my international fee. It was a perfect storm of being feasible,” Lang said.
Asked if he thought the delay would cause people to leave the program, Lang said he believed it would cause some to leave. “Because we’ve been told things that didn’t pan out, I know people will be worried,” he said. “For us seniors, it’s really difficult.
“With most programs, you have to take a certain amount of credit hours to graduate from that school, so I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” Lang said.
