Cal Poly Engineering Earns Accolades from ABET

SAN LUIS OBISPO – Cal Poly’s College of Engineering recently received accreditation for 11 of its degree programs – including a first-time accreditation for the Software Engineering established in 2003.

ABET—the accreditor for university programs in computing, engineering and technology—awards the stamp of approval that assures program quality and adds value to diplomas. Getting that approval involves an ongoing process that culminates in an on-site visit by a team of evaluators every six years.

Fred DePiero, associate dean of the college, credits the recent ABET success to the fact that the college has institutionalized ongoing procedures that provide assessment data, from student competencies to the professional performance of alumni.

“While assessment adds to faculty workloads, the process has value because it embeds ongoing program improvement,” DePiero said. “ABET makes us keenly aware that we need to make sure we’re meeting the needs of industry and that our grads hit the ground running. It’s a data-driven process for curriculum revision.”

Cal Poly’s ABET processes, in fact, have become a template for the other 600 ABET-accredited universities. At the recent 2010 ABET Symposium, DePiero was invited to speak about his experience leading the process at Cal Poly; his topic was “How Can All This Get Done? Centralizing Efforts Across Programs.”

Moreover, ABET displayed five Cal Poly 2008 program self studies as exemplary report examples.

“The only other institutions with more than one report on display were the Air Force Academy and West Point,” DePiero said, “and only 20 were displayed for engineering programs in all. We really stood out.”

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