UA LITTLE ROCK GEOLOGY PROGRAM'S PATHWAY TO ABET ACCREDITATION

On October 1, 2017, the geology program in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock became the first undergraduate geology program in the United States to successfully receive ABET accreditation through ABET’s Applied Science Accreditation Commission (ASAC). The choice to pursue ABET accreditation came about somewhat serendipitously. We were updating our program review plan while also getting better acquainted with our new campus ‘home’ in the College of Engineering and Information Technology following academic restructuring. The move put us in closer contact with engineering colleagues who were very familiar with ABET accreditation. At about the same time, ABET began considering accrediting natural sciences programs through the ASAC (recently renamed Applied and Natural Science Accreditation Commission (ANSAC)). We realized that degree programs in the geosciences and in engineering and applied science programs require similar supporting science and mathematics courses and have many similar student learning outcomes. Here, we present our experience with the ABET accreditation process and how it has helped us to assess our educational objectives and use this information to improve our geology program.