Accreditation of Dalhousie's Engineering Programs
(Image taken from https://engineerscanada.ca/)
Recent Accreditation of Dalhousie’s Engineering Programs
By: Rory McPhail
Have you ever wondered how you can get an engineering degree in Canada and practice not only in every province but internationally? This is all because of a process called accreditation, performed by the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) and is part of a larger, international agreement called the Washington Accord. The Washington Accord has 21 international signatories that allows people to get an engineering degree in one country and have that degree recognized in the other 20. To make this possible, all engineering programs must be accredited.
Dalhousie recently underwent the accreditation process. The accreditation process analyses each program individually. Here at Dal, there are 7 accredited engineering programs: chemical, mechanical, civil, electrical, environmental, industrial, and mineral resources. The accreditation process is an in depth look that, put simply, makes sure that Dal’s engineering programs are comparable with other Canadian and international universities. A large part of this is based on the graduate attributes (that part of the course syllabus that everyone skims past). There are 12 graduate attributes: knowledge base for engineering, problem analysis, investigation, design, use of engineering tools, individual and teamwork, communication skills, professionalism, impact of engineering on society, ethics and equity, economics and project management and life-long learning. Each course helps to foster the growth of these attributes in the students. While graduate attributes do not affect a student’s mark in the course, each professor keeps track of the attribute development in the students and Dal has a massive database that tracks attribute development.
Dal has been prepping for the accreditation visit that happened this past weekend (October 29 – November 1), for about a year. After the accreditation officials receive all the required documents and read through them, they come visit the university to confirm the opinion they’ve developed from the documents. To do so they speak with the students, staff, professors, and industry partners. As students are the primary stakeholders, the accreditation officials give special attention to student opinions. The accreditation officials held individual student panels with students from every discipline and each year. After the process has finished, the CEAB will give the university recommendations on how to improve the individual programs. This accreditation process happens every 3 to 6 years depending on the number of recommendations given by the CEAB. A program can’t fail accreditation but if something was drastically wrong the CEAB might give a deadline like a year to fix the program before returning for another visit.
As a student, sometimes it seems like your voice doesn’t have a huge impact on the way the university runs. However, accreditation is proof that the student experience is taken seriously and considered when making program recommendations and changes. While the accreditation visit may have seemed like only a brief visit to your lab or a quick 30-minute panel, in reality it had a much grander impact. Not only does accreditation give voice to student opinions about the program but the resulting accredited degree opens doors all over the country and world for the recipient.