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The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) currently accredits some 2700 programs at over 550 colleges and universities nationwide. All of the engineering programs and all of the engineering technology programs at the University of Toledo are ABET-accredited. For programs to maintain their accreditation, an ABET team composed of volunteers from other universities and industry visits the programs every six years, and sometimes more often. This evaluation is an exhaustive and comprehensive process. During the visit the team examines a program’s curriculum, admission processes, graduation checkout processes, assessment processes, and samples of student work. Programs must demonstrate achievement of their stated objectives and outcomes. During the visit, the team interviews people at all levels, from students all the way through the President of the university. Engineering programs at UT will next be visited in fall 2005 and the engineering technology programs will be visited in fall 2006.
Going through the accreditation process is a lot of work for the university and programs being evaluated as well as for the visiting team. But the effort is worth it because it allows a program and the students in the program to be confident in the quality of the program.
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