WVU Tech featured in Newsweek's Best of ABET list for 2016

WVU Tech was among a dozen schools featured in Newsweek’s “The Best of ABET’s Accredited Programs 2016” list in early March.

The Newsweek piece was created in partnership with ABET. The article includes a description of ABET’s process and the importance of individual program accreditation. WVU Tech maintains nine ABET-accredited programs in engineering, engineering technology and computer science.

Read more about ABET and the best ABET-accredited schools in America below:

From Newsweek Educational Insight, March 3, 2016:

ABET is the global accreditor of nearly 3,600 technical programs at over 700 colleges and universities in 29 countries. The work that we do influences programs all over the world. From Lima to Manila and Miami to Honolulu, the quality we guarantee inspires confidence in the programs we accredit.

Our accreditation is proof that a program has met standards essential to produce graduates ready to enter the critical fields of applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology. Graduates from an ABET-accredited program have a solid educational foundation and are capable of leading the way in innovation, emerging technologies, and in anticipating the welfare and safety needs of the public.

Our focus is strictly on the education students receive. The global standards that we set and the review process that we employ are rigorous, yet flexible. Our program evaluators look at outcomes—what students are actually learning from courses rather than what they are being taught—because those are the real indicators that a graduate has the professional and technical skills that employers demand. Sought worldwide, ABET’s voluntary peer-review process is highly respected because it adds real value to academic programs in disciplines where quality, precision, and safety are of the utmost importance.

This process is the culmination of a practice of ongoing self-assessment and continuous improvement, which assures confidence that ABET-accredited programs are meeting the needs of their students, preparing graduates to enter their careers, and responsive to the needs of the professions and the world.

We accredit college and university programs, not degrees, departments, colleges, institutions, or individuals. This allows us to be single-minded in our commitment to determine that a program fully prepares a student to enter the workforce.

We accomplish this through the work of our Experts—professionals from industry, academia, and government. They are recruited and assigned by leading professional and technical societies, such as IEEE, ASME and ASCE. Virtually every team includes executives from companies such as Boeing, Caterpillar, DuPont, GM, IBM, Raytheon, and UPS.

Responsive to increasing globalization, we work to ensure that the graduates of ABET-accredited programs can employ their talents internationally. We do this by signing agreements with educational quality assurance organizations in other countries and jurisdictions. Not only does this allow ABET-accredited program graduates to use their skills around the world, but it also raises their value to employers. The U.S. Government, for example, and many multinational corporations seek employees with degrees from ABET-accredited programs that translate globally.

When ABET’s quality standards are applied and promoted around the globe, the results are a better-educated, geographically mobile, diverse technical workforce well prepared to advance innovation and excel professionally in fields of critical importance to society.

Students and their families choose schools for many different reasons, but one thing they all seek is a solid quality education. ABET accreditation allows families to be confident that their students are attending a program that will give them the knowledge and skills to continue their education or enter the workforce.

THE BEST OF AMERICA’S ABET ACCREDITED PROGRAMS

West Virginia University Institute of Technology (Montgomery, WV)

Pennsylvania College of Technology (Williamsport, PA)

The University of Virginia’s College at Wise (Wise, VA)

Loyola Marymount University Frank R. Seaver College of Science and Engineering (Los Angeles, CA)

Texas A&M University-Kingsville (Kingsville, TX)

University of Colorado Denver, College of Engineering and Applied Science (Denver, CO)

The Citadel (Charleston, SC)

University of New Haven (West Haven, CT)

Grove City College (Grove City, PA)

University of Louisiana at Lafayette College of Engineering (Lafayette, LA)

The University of Texas at San Antonio College of Engineering (San Antonio, TX)

University of South Florida (Tampa, FL)