The Observer, November 3, 2006
Volume XXXIX, Issue 9
Rumors fly regarding CSE accreditation
On Oct. 18, all Case School of Engineering (CSE) faculty, staff, and undergraduate students received an e-mail from Dean of Engineering Robert F. Savinell providing an update on the school's accreditation process.
Some of this information was misconstrued and soon rumors were flying on forum.case.edu that the school was losing accreditation, which would affect not only graduates but also future recruitment.
These rumors were untrue. As Savinell stated in the e-mail, the school expects all programs to receive continued accreditation next summer.
For schools like CSE, accreditation is granted to individual programs every six years by the American Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. When CSE was last evaluated in 2000, all programs were found worthy of accreditation with the exceptions of Undesignated Engineering, which has never been accredited, and Engineering Physics, which was brand-new at the time.
"Accreditation quite frankly doesn't mean all that much," said Savinell. "Though graduate schools might check the accreditation of an unknown school, all it means is that you've satisfied certain minimum requirements."
The process for accreditation is a complicated one.
First, the school completes a self-evaluation and a report describing each program in complete detail.
Next, the board does a site visit: a team reviews the self-evaluation and program report and interviews people both inside and outside each program, such as faculty, students, librarians, administrators, and members of related departments like Chemistry and Mathematics.
After the visit, the team provides the school with an inventory of observations, and the school has 14 days to correct any factual errors made in the inventory. After any necessary corrections have been made, the team leader puts together a report detailing positive aspects, concerns, weaknesses, and deficiencies of each program.
At this point, the school has 30 days to make changes and report them to the board. Finally, the board decides whether or not to grant accreditation over the summer.
There are three different kinds of ABET accreditation: either the board will come back in six years, the school will have to submit a report in three years, or the board will come back in three years. The school is not permitted to disclose what kind of accreditation it holds for each program.
For CSE, most reported weaknesses this year were a result of assessment processes.
Until 2000, ABET required little more than a certain number of classes for each program. In 2000, however, they implemented requirements involving objectives and outcomes of each program, which are then tested by surveying people involved.
While the objectives and outcomes CSE submitted in 2000 were found acceptable, ABET has since altered its expectations. When CSE submitted the same objectives and outcomes this year as in 2000, they were judged unsatisfactory.
During the site visit, Savinell was asked how Edward Hundert's resignation last spring affected CSE, if at all.
"I told them that the president had very little impact on the School of Engineering. Administrators come and go," said Savinell, who will step down as dean effective Dec. 31.
"We expect to get accredited next summer," says Savinell.
