Spotlight: Accreditation Top Priority at UAH Huntsville

As other U.S. universities do every six years, The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) recently underwent a review of their ABET accredited engineering programs. All programs were thoroughly reviewed and successfully continued their full program accreditation status. UAH's accreditation status goes back to 1976 when their Mechanical Engineering program was first fully accredited, so the university has a long history of establishing and maintaining program accreditation for its engineering degrees.

Noting that the accreditation evaluation result will remain in place for the next six years until the departments are up for their next review, UAH Dean of the College of Engineering, Shankar Mahalingam, expressed his support for the process. 

“Having all our engineering degree programs accredited since their date of inception is very important for our former, current and future engineering graduates," he explained. “Employers in the region and across our country are reassured that our graduates have met the standards set by ABET.”

“The exhaustive accreditation review that occurred in 2021 was particularly challenging since the ‘site visit’ was conducted virtually,” added Dr. Mahalingam. “Our faculty had to prepare videos of all our teaching laboratories and other instructional facilities for our reviewers. The NGR outcome was a huge team effort, for which I am truly grateful.”

UAH is currently in the process of having their newest program, Cycbersecurity Engineering, accredited -- a process which takes several years from program launch to attain. The new degree will prepare students to work in cybersecurity intensive jobs.  Cybersecurity is one of the newer program areas in which ABET is accrediting.