The Computer Science program has earned its independent accreditation from the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET after years of preparation.
Accreditation through ABET insures the standard for computing, applied and natural science and engineering and engineering technology programs around the world.
“We’ve been building these efforts for so many years,” said Dr. Joshua Guerin, interim chair of the Department of Computer Science. “We’ve been putting a pretty large amount of work and focus above and beyond the rest of our daily jobs so I think all around we have a very excited feeling to finally see all of our efforts come to some sort of fruition.”
According to Guerin, preparation for the evaluation was taking place before he came to teach at UTM six years ago.
“We are continually collecting information about our courses, about our objectives and learning outcomes and we use everything that we collect to determine how well we’re meeting our objectives,” he said.
During this time, the program’s faculty and staff received support from many different individuals, including professor of engineering and the Chair of the Engineering Department, Dr. Robert LeMaster.
LeMaster had previously served as Computer Science chair and reviewed information as well as offering his comments and suggestions.
“It makes it a stronger program,” LeMaster said. “When the students are considering studying computer science and they look at a program that is accredited versus not accredited, the accredited program’s assurance is that it meets the same standards of a new program of a bigger program.”
Dr. Richard Helgeson, interim vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost, also offered his assistance when he served as dean of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences.
The review process itself takes 18 months.
“I think that the accreditation is largely an affirmation of our continued commitment to success of our department and for our students,” Guerin said.
Students that graduate with a degree in computer science have a wide variety of job opportunities including positions as a robotics programmer, software developer, hardware engineer and more.
