Historical Documents

Electrical engineering curricula made their first appearance in the U.S. in the early 1880's as options in physics that aimed to prepare students to enter the new and rapidly growing electrical manufacturing industry. As this industry developed, so did electrical engineering education, and within a decade made a place for itself as an equal among the older engineering departments. The curricula that evolved followed the needs of the industry, and before World War I were concentrated largely on the properties of dc and ac circuits and equipment and associated systems of power distribution. Before World War I, little graduate work was carried on, and what passed in academic institutions for "research" was typically advanced testing. The standard career pattern was to receive a B.S. degree and then obtain a job where one could learn how practical electrical work was done. After World War I, developments in broadcasting and communication led to the appearance of communication options within electrical engineering departments. Concurrently, students having a special interest in teaching or in research were increasingly encouraged to obtain the master's degree. However, the numbers who did so were small, and practically no electrical engineers sought a doctor's degree. For example, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1925 there was only one member of that large faculty who held an earned doctorate, while the background of about half of the faculty consisted of a bachelor's degree plus practical experience. Under these circumstances research performed in academic institutions was in most cases superficial, although here and there some significant work was carried on by an unusual professor. When World War II came along and brought into being such new electrical and electronic techniques such as radar, microwaves, control systems, guided missiles, proximity fuses, etc., the electrical engineers were caught unprepared. As a group they had neither the fundamental knowledge required to think creatively about these new concepts, nor the research experience to carry through. Thus most of the great electrical developments of the war were produced not by engineers, but rather by scientists, particularly physicists who had turned engineers for the duration. In the decade after the war, electrical engineering education went through a complete transformation. Prewar courses were drastically revised. Increased emphasis was placed on fundamentals, including particularly emphasis on physical and mathematical principles underlying electrical engineering. These results were achieved by reducing the time devoted to teaching engineering practice, by eliminating subjects such as surveying that were of little concern to electrical engineering, and by reducing the concentration on 60-cycle power. In addition, master's programs were developed that were direct extensions of the revised bachelor's program, and in time the master's degree became the recommended degree goal of the student who desired to follow a career in technical engineering. Concurrently, the doctor's degree became the objective of those who planned a career in academia or of research in industry, or who wanted training superior to that of their many classmates working for the master's degree. With government funds available, programs of student/faculty research developed on many campuses that were the equal of the research being carried on in the best industrial laboratories. The combined effect of curriculum changes, more students carrying on graduate work, the existence of university research laboratories of the highest caliber with this research led by well-trained faculty aided by doctoral and master's candidates, has completely changed both the character and intellectual level of electrical engineering on the campus. This is illustrated by the fact that in a 1969 survey of a representative group of major high technology firms, 82 percent agreed with the statement that "Engineers now learn enough science and mathematics so that they can adequately fill positions once occupied only by physicists." If another world emergency should arise, the electrical engineers will this time be ready to carry their share of the leadership.

The full article is available via request here or via IEEE for members here.

In 1923 a development committee was appointed by the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education to answer the question "What can the Society do in a comprehensive way to develop, broaden and enrich engineering education?" The result was the development of a comprehensive survey to look at the engineering education, directed by W.E. Wickenden.  One hundred and fifty college participated along with several national engineering societies and the US Bureau of Education. The executive summary is available here.

The paper is a survey phase of a two-to-three year study of two major accreditation consortia: the Washington Accord (WA) and the Bologna Process (BP). These consortia were developed to ensure academic quality, recognition of accredited degrees and thus ease the mobility of professionals within wide geographical areas. The WA consortium was established in 1989 by six predominantly English-speaking countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the UK and the USA. The WA covers the undergraduate accredited engineering programmes for mutual recognition by all full WA members. The WA currently has eight full members and four provisional members. The BP was designed to lead towards the creation of a European Higher Education Area. The BP was initiated in 1999 with 29 signatory European countries and now has 40 full members. The BP covers all academic programmes including engineering at the undergraduate and master’s levels. National or international licensing of engineers is not covered either by the WA or BP consortia. It can be envisaged that the WA and BP consortia will continue to expand and that in the foreseeable future, the WA and BP consortia will remain the major driving forces in the academic assessment field.

This article investigates the influence of developments in engineering education on the establishment of departmental libraries for engineering in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American universities. A case study is made of the University of Kansas and Frank O. Marvin, a former president of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education and dean of the university’s School of Engineering when its library opened in 1909. While national forces spanning the profession supplied the necessary preconditions for Kansas’s library, Marvin was the local catalyst. His beliefs about what attributes the successful engineer should possess and how a liberal education could produce those attributes made the library inevitable.

In a previous paper the author described the present situation and recent advances regarding accreditation of engineering programmes in Europe. This paper contains an attempt at examining perspectives from a global viewpoint. While the variety of educational approaches within European higher education is to be considered a great asset of the European cultural background, the ‘Bologna Process’ is working to build up the ‘European Higher Education Area’ (EHEA) and ‘a system of easily readable and comparable degrees’ in the context of making Europe ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world’. In this framework a pan-European system of accreditation of engineering programmes and qualifications will be essential in order for European engineers to be competitive on a global scale. While the merely ‘professional’ aspects of recognition are covered by the European Directive 2005/36/EC ‘on the recognition of professional qualifications’ (which replaces all previous Directives on the subject, including the 1989 General Directive 89/48/EEC), little progress has been made towards trans-European accreditation of educational programmes as the entry route to a profession. This is particularly damaging in highly internationalized professions, like engineering. Several initiatives have been put forward in recent years to remedy this situation: in particular, this paper will illustrate the current EUR-ACE (EURopean ACredited Engineer) project, which is working towards the establishment of a European system for accreditation of engineering educational programmes based on a network of spontaneous agreements between national and regional bodies and associations concerned.

This article traces the history of US engineering accreditation with regard to non-technical curriculum requirements from the founding of the Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD) in 1932 up to the adoption of Engineering Criteria 2000 (EC 2000) in 1999. The activities of the ECPD, which became the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, ABET, in 1980, took place in the larger context of the development of engineering as a profession and steps that industrial and academic leaders took during the 20th century to increase the quality and uniformity of engineering education. The story is not a simple, straightforward tale of how a homogeneous pro-business cadre of engineering educators designed a system of education for purely pragmatic ends. Buried in the volumes of old journals and annual reports is evidence that engineering educators and leaders indulged in a serious amount of organized introspection over the years.

This report from the National Academy of Engineering, written by a group of distinguished educators and practicing engineers from diverse backgrounds, includes various scenarios for the future based on current scientific and technological trends. In addition to identifying the ideal attributes of the engineer of 2020, the report recommends ways to improve the training of engineers to prepare them for addressing the complex technical, social, and ethical questions raised by emerging technologies.

This document, which is continually revised by the US Department of Education, is intended only to provide clarity to the public regarding accreditation requirements under the law or agency policies.

This article reviews the long history of efforts to define a proper standard for engineering education, and the implications this has for the current set of proposed changes to ABET's engineering accreditation criteria.

A history of engineering education in the United States is described, beginning with General Washington's general order in 1778 calling for the establishment of a school of engineering and concluding with a discussion of the general trends in engineering education as of 1980. 

This document, presented at the 121st ASEE Annual Conference, assembled international data on engineering accreditation and reviewed issues concerning the implications of accreditation for engineering programs.

Information and insight on the early days of the Washington Accord.