Continuous Improvement Educational Initiative: A Campus Wide Assessment Effort

Ever since the approval of the new Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) Engineering Criteria (EC 2000) on November 2, 1996, educational institutions across the United States have had to assess and evaluate their undergraduate engineering programs from a different perspective. The University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez undertook steps fully four years prior to the actual site visit. All six undergraduate engineering programs were evaluated during November 2002 and have been successfully reaccredited. The experience gained was subsequently utilized as a springboard to establish a new campus-wide Continuous Improvement Educational Initiative (CIEI) lead by a multi-disciplinary team. The long-term objective of this initiative is to assess not only the student learning outcomes across campus, which also includes the non-engineering disciplines, but to even develop a process by which the various support services could be assessed. This required the design and administration of customized questionnaires as instruments of assessment, including the development of an overall institutional assessment plan, and an institutional plan for student learning outcomes, for the very first time. Objective The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the experience gained in the process of preparing for reaccreditation of engineering programs has helped in extending the ideas of continuous improvement beyond the College of Engineering to the rest of the campus. Furthermore, the intent of this paper is to share the experience with other institutions who may also be in the early stages of preparation. Various other independent accounts of such experiences can also be found in literature, such as the Ohio State University and Drexel University. Introduction The University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez (UPRM) is one of the 11 campuses of the University of Puerto Rico System. The UPR System is a public institution, which was created by the Puerto Rico Legislative Assembly on March 12, 1903. It collectively enrolls about 67,000 students. The Mayaguez Campus (UPRM) is a land grant institution that began in 1911 with the College of Agricultural Sciences. Subsequently, other colleges were added as follows: College of Engineering (1913), College of Arts & Sciences (1943), and the College of Business (1970). The student body consists of about 11,000 undergraduate and 970 graduate students. The College of Engineering counts on an undergraduate enrollment of 4458 students, of which, 36 percent are females, which is one of the highest in engineering among U.S. institutions. This enrollment results in UPRM as ranking 15 th nationally in terms of the number of bachelors P ge 940.1 “Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education” degrees awarded (695) during 2000-2001. The strategic plan of the College of Engineering was approved by its faculty on October 13, 1998, and subsequently revised on September 25, 2003. The vision and mission statements, which are an integral part of the strategic plan, are well in consonance and they subscribe to preparing “best professionals in engineering” and “strong education in engineering.” This commitment to excellence is reflected in our college’s philosophy “to provide a firm educational foundation.” Undergraduate education is our strength. While emphasis on research and graduate education with newer doctoral programs has gained increased attention, the fact remains that graduate degrees have consistently accounted for less than ten percent of the total bachelor’s degrees conferred. The College of Engineering comprises six academic units or departments, which are: Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering & Surveying, and General Engineering. These collectively offer seven bachelor’s degree programs, of which, six are in engineering with a separate program in surveying. All of the six bachelor’s degree programs in Electrical, Computer, Mechanical, Industrial, Civil, and Chemical Engineering are accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The bachelor’s degree programs at UPRM are of five-year duration as opposed to four years at most U.S. institutions. This provides both breadth and depth, along with ample opportunities for summer internships, undergraduate research, exchange programs, and a strong cooperative education program in partnership with industry. Approximately 27 percent of all undergraduate engineering students avail themselves of this cooperative education industry experience, with bulk of the students, about 45 percent, coming from Mechanical and Chemical Engineering programs. The programs underwent a reaccreditation site visit during November 2002 as per ABET’s new Engineering Criteria 2000. Focus of ABET’s EC2000 ABET’s periodic review of engineering programs is well accepted as a form of program assessment and quality assurance. Since its enactment, Engineering Criteria 2000 have been well publicized in various sources, and effective Fall 2001, all programs coming up for accreditation review, are being evaluated for compliance against these criteria. These essentially consist of eight criteria with a goal of continuous program improvement as opposed to the earlier focus on rigid quantitative inputs. These criteria encompass: (1) Students, (2) Program Educational Objectives, (3) Program Outcomes and Assessment, (4) Professional Component, (5) Faculty, (6) Facilities, (7) Institutional Support and Financial Resources, and (8) Specific Program criteria. George D. Peterson, ABET’s Executive Director, states that at the core of these criteria “is an outcomes assessment component that requires each engineering program seeking accreditation or reaccreditation to establish its own internal assessment process, which in turn, will be assessed by ABET.” M. Dayne Aldridge and Larry D. Benefield point out that it is not sufficient to merely demonstrate the achievement of educational objectives (Criterion 2) and program outcomes (Criterion 3), but additionally, “a commitment to continuous improvement and the stability to continue its achievement record over the next six years.” Frank G. Splitt succinctly remarked, “engineering education reform presents a formidable challenge, given academe’s interest in preservation of the status quo.” The entire process can be summarized into the following key steps: