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The Development of Geology Degree Program Accreditation by the ABET C. Dale Elifrits, PhD
Writing from Highland Heights, Kentucky, Dale Elifrits is Professor Emeritus of Geological Engineering and Associate Director Emeritus of Freshman Engineering at the Missouri University of Science and Technology and Director of Pre-Engineering (retired) and Visiting Professor of Geology at Northern Kentucky University. He is a Senior Emeritus Member of AEG and a Fellow and Registered Member of SME.
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The Genesis of Geology Degree Program Accreditation t a 1999 meeting of the Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG), Robert E. Tepel suggested to ASBOG leaders that an accreditation process analogous A to that of the Accreditation Board of Engineering Technology (ABET) and the work of the National Council of Examiners for
Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) would help in the geologist licensure process. Three years later at its 2002 Annual Meeting,
AEG initiated discussions about the future practice of the profession of geology as Tepel convened the first of a series of symposia entitled Visioning the Future of Engineering Geology:
Sustainability and Stewardship. The series featured presentations addressing the needs of the profession from practitioners, faculty members, agency representatives, employers, and ABET representatives (see AEG Special Publication 19). These symposia illuminated the need for quality assurance in geology degree program requirements and opened the conversation about how the erstwhile-named Applied Science Accreditation Commission (ASAC) of ABET could provide this assurance by offering accreditation of geology degree programs.
Fast forward: In May 2015, ABET’s executive leadership appointed an ad hoc Committee to examine opportunities for accreditation of science degree programs. Geology programs became the initial focus since ABET had accredited geology programs at foreign institutions using ASAC and its General
Criteria. This paper’s author was appointed to represent the geology discipline. An extensive search was conducted to identify a professional society to be the Lead Society for geology program accreditation. After many conversations with and rejections by geo-centric professional societies, the Society for
Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration (SME) agreed to assume this role. SME is a member society of the American Institute of
Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers (AIME), which is one of the five ABET founding societies, and has responsibility for geological engineering, mining engineering, geophysical engineering, and related programs. Also, SME has a wide breadth of professional geologists in its active membership.
Summary of General Criteria and Program-specific Criteria
Natural and applied science programs are now accredited by the Applied and Natural Science Accreditation Commission (ANSAC) of ABET. This commission is populated by professionals from the various societies of these disciplines who have gathered to work for quality assurance of science degree programs for their professional practice. ANSAC General Criteria are designed to be used in all science disciplines (https://www.abet.org/accreditation /accreditation-criteria/criteria-for-accrediting-applied-and-naturalscience-programs-2020-2021/). Each Lead Society is responsible for specific Program Criteria for that society’s discipline(s). During the past four years SME, through an ad hoc committee appointed by its Council on Education, promulgated geology and geoscience program-specific criteria. These were released by ANSAC/ABET in November of 2018 for public comment, revised in the fall of 2019 per the few comments received, and adopted for use in the fall of 2020. (Consult the site above and scroll down to find these program criteria.) The ad hoc committee from SME was composed of Jonathan G. Price, PhD, Nevada State Geologist Emeritus; William H. Wilkinson, PhD, Vice President Exploration-Africa, Freeport-McMoRan Inc.; and chaired by C. Dale Elifrits, PhD, Professor of Geological Engineering Emeritus, Missouri University of Science and Technology, who has more than 30 years of ABET experience, including serving as the geology program evaluator for the first geology program in the U.S. to be accredited by ANSAC/ABET. That committee consulted organizations such as AIPG, ASBOG, and many professionals in the practice of geology. These program criteria were largely crafted to reflect the ASBOG Task Analysis data as related to the needs of Professional Geologists in practice in the US.
Brief Summary of the Accreditation Process
The ABET accreditation process is common to all four ABET commissions, of which ANSAC is one. But each commission operates independently of the others using its own criteria and determining its actions. Program Evaluators are trained by the commission for which they will undertake program accreditation reviews NB: This means that volunteer geology degree program evaluators are needed and AEG members are prime candidates—contact the author of this paper for further information or visit the ABET.org and examine how to become a program evaluator. Program Evaluator Candidates (PEV-Cs) are required to be SME members and are trained by ANSAC/ABET at ABET expense. PEV-Cs who successfully complete the ANSAC/ABET training will then attend the SME Annual PEV Update and Training at an SME annual meeting before completing an observation visit with an ANSAC campus visit team to be fully prepared to make program reviews. The annual
meeting training has no registration cost and the SME Foundation reimburses costs of the observation visit.
Program reviews normally are accomplished via three-day campus visits conducted by a team of PEVs, one for each program visited, with a team chair, all of which are ANSAC trained professionals; and the team chair an ANSAC Commissioner. Reviews may also be conducted in part or entirely in virtual mode if circumstances require, as with the COVID pandemic during the 2020–21 Cycle. The geology PEV evaluates the geology program, shares findings with the team, after which the PEV and the team reach a consensus as to the recommended accreditation action. This recommendation, along with the geology PEV’s report, move forward via the team chair’s report to the ANSAC Commission, where the final accreditation action is taken, and the program and institution are so advised.
The time elapsed from an institution’s request for a program accreditation review by ANSAC to the time of the ANSAC Commission’s accreditation action notification is nominally from January to August of the following year. The program submits a Self-Study to ABET by July 1st of the year in which the request is made. The campus visit phase of a review normally occurs in the fall the same year. See the ABET Accreditation Policy and Procedure Manual for details of this process (https://www.abet.org/ accreditation/accreditation-criteria/accreditation-policy-andprocedure-manual-appm-2020-2021/ ) The program will receive an oral report of the visit findings at the end of the campus visit or virtual review, followed by a draft statement of findings in January/ February with an opportunity to make a due process response. After this response, the team chair will finalize the team’s report and the recommended accreditation action. This will be submitted for the Commission’s consideration and final decision at the Commission’s annual meeting in July and followed by official notification to the program by early September. Normally, the PEV’s work is finished when the team leaves campus, but the PEV may be contacted by the team chair during the due process period.
Value of ANSAC/ABET Program Accreditation
ABET accreditation is recognized worldwide as the “gold standard” for marking a degree program’s high quality. Foreign-based geology degree programs have been accredited by ANSAC/ABET using the General Criteria for several years, and interest is increasing. ABET’s Industry Advisory Council recently completed a study of the high value of accreditation; see https://www.abet.org/about-abet/publications/. Certification to sit for the Geologist-in-Training Examination is simplified for a student who graduates from an ABET-accredited program. The State of California now requires that applicants have graduated from an ABET-accredited program or a program that demonstrates its requirements fulfill both ANSAC General and Geology Program Criteria. Further, holding a degree in geology or a similarly named degree that is ANSAC/ABET-accredited provides advantages for the graduate’s professional and career development.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Robert E. Tepel, AEG member; David R. Hammond, SME’s ANSAC Commissioner for geology and geoscience programs; Amanda Reid, Esq., Adjunct Accreditation Manager, ANSAC; and my wife Kathy, my long-time technical
AEG is seeking an enthusiastic volunteer to serve as Co-Editor of the Geology of the Cities of the World publications. The series was founded by Dr. Allen Hatheway in 1980 in tribute to Dr. Robert Leggett, a geologist who helped develop the concept of urban geology as a specific field of practice. The 27 issues published to date provide practitioners, graduate students, university faculty, planners, engineers, developers, and government officials background information useful for discovering and highlighting geological issues unique to a city and in some cases its metropolitan area. The Co-Editors review draft documents and provide direction to the authors about the technical content and presentation. Attention to detail, patience and ability to visualize the finished product are required. The time commitment for the Co-Editor varies depending on the activities of the various lead authors and the reviewers. The Co-Editor should consider typically setting aside up to twenty hours per month. When a specific paper is under review, the time commitment may increase, to up to sixty to eighty hours per month.
For more information and to indicate your interest in this voluntary position, contact Co-Editor Ted Toskos at Theodoros.toskos@gmail.com.
Writing from Atlanta, Charles
Livingston is a registered geologist in
Georgia, Tennessee, North
Carolina, and California (Certified
Engineering Geologist) and a registered engineer in Colorado.
Charles is a Senior Emeritus
Member of AEG and has worked on energy, mining, and infrastructure projects throughout North America. l am an 84-year-old retired geologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I have been an AEG member for a little over 53 years. On February 26, 2019, I gave a geology talk to a professional geology organization called the Atlanta Geologic Society. What I generally do in such presentations (rather than talk about detailed geology) is to talk about some of the crazy (and sometimes scary) things that have happened on some of my geology projects. This way, the talk is also of interest to the non-geologists that may be present (wives, husbands, etc.). I did that this time, but about halfway through the talk, I added something a little different. I asked, “How many of you are registered geologists in Georgia?” The majority of the audience raised their hands. I then said, “You know, just a few days ago, I had the occasion to go to the Internet and look up something about the
Georgia State Board of Registration for Professional Geologists.
What I found kind of shocked me. It said the following:
The Georgia General Assembly created the Georgia
State Board of Registration for Professional
Geologists in 1975 for the purpose of protecting the public health, life, property and welfare by regulating those who engage in the public practice of geology.
The Board has the authority to adopt rules, set standards for licensure, adopt mandatory standards of professional conduct, and investigate and discipline unauthorized, negligent or incompetent practice.”
I then said, “that is an absolute crock!”
When I said that, a geologist in the front row (about six feet from where I was standing at the podium) nearly jumped out of his shorts and voiced his displeasure at me for saying such a thing. He said, “Charles, I served on the geology board, and it is not a crock!” I then said, “The statement that the General
Assembly created the geology board is what constitutes a crock. If you think that the members of the General Assembly were sitting around one day in 1975 drinking their coffee and picking their noses, and suddenly someone said, “Hey, I’ve got a pregnant idea—lets create a Georgia State Board of Registration for Professional Geologists,” I’m here to tell you that that never happened. At that period in time, the members of the
General Assembly (the House and the Senate) couldn’t even spell geologist. They didn’t know what geologists do, or why registration of geologists was desirable.” What I then told them about how it actually was that we came to have registration of geologists in Georgia is explained in the paragraphs that follow.
In February of 1967, I was hired by Dames & Moore, a national and international engineering company, to come to Georgia (from my home state of Colorado) to become project manager for a geologic investigation for the first nuclear power plant in Georgia in the southern part of the state near the town of Baxley. When I told my AEG contacts in Denver that I was moving to Atlanta, they told me that AEG didn’t have a section in the southeastern portion of the country, and that they would like me to form a new section there after I made the move. I told them that I would do that.
When we made the move, my son was four years old and my daughter was four months old. The way it worked out, I didn’t get to see them or my wife very much for a long time. As soon as we got to Atlanta, I found myself often working 80 to 90 hours per week and being gone for weeks and months (as long as three months) without even getting home on a weekend. After finishing the nuclear power plant investigation in Georgia, I performed five more geologic investigations for nuclear power plants in Alabama, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and New York. I did investigations for oil refineries in Quebec and New Brunswick Canada, Grand Bahama Island, and Joliet, Illinois. I spent a month in Prudhoe Bay Alaska, and I had dam projects in Georgia and Louisiana. Even when I was home in Atlanta writing reports, I didn’t get to see much of my family. They were still in bed when I left early to beat the traffic, and they were already in bed when I got home.
Needless to say, this didn’t leave much time to even think about forming a new AEG section in the southeastern portion of the country. It so happened, however, that in 1972 things slowed up just a little bit, and I was able to call a meeting of geologists in Atlanta and surrounding areas. I told them all about AEG and asked them if they would be interested in being part of a new section. They were interested. Shortly after that, I flew to Kansas City, where AEG was having the annual meeting that year, and met with the Board of Directors on Saturday after the meeting had been concluded. They were delighted to hear of the interest in forming a new section and did all the paperwork necessary to make it happen. The new section was to be called the Southeastern Section and would include Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and North and South Carolina.
I became the Chairman of the new AEG Section. We promptly formed a legislative committee and wrote a bill to provide for registration of geologists in Georgia and deemed that the entity that would make all this happen would be called the Georgia State Board of Registration for Professional Geologists. We then lobbied the Georgia House and Senate to get the bill passed. They got it and passed the bill. They did pass the bill, but it was handed to them on a platter, and they did not create it.
I was a member of the first Georgia State Board of Registration for Professional Geologists. I personally wrote most of the rules and regulations and part of the exam and passed judgement on 680 applications for registration during my three-year term. Shortly after that, a number of geologists in Alabama decided that they wanted to get registration of geologists in their state. I flew to Birmingham for a dinner meeting where I spoke to them about what we did in Georgia and how we did it. I gave them a copy of the bill that we wrote to use as a guide. We promptly formed a legislative committee and wrote a bill to provide for registration of geologists in Georgia and “ deemed that the entity that They were successful, and there was registration of geologists in Alabama not long after we got it in Georgia. A few years down the road, geologists in North and South Carolina decided that they wanted to have their own section. They split off and formed the Carolina section, which has become one of the most vigorous and successful sections in the entire would make all this happen would be called the Georgia State Board of Registration for Professional Geologists. ” organization. (EDITORS’ NOTE: If you’re interested in encouraging licensure for geologists in your state, AEG’s Licensure Committee can help! Contact manager@aegweb.org.)
Environmental & Engineering Geoscience
MAY 2020 VOLUME XXVI, NUMBER 2
WANTED: BOOK REVIEW EDITOR
Environmental and Engineering Geology
(EEG) journal is looking for an enthusiastic member of either AEG or GSA to serve as Book
THE JOINT PUBLICATION OF THE ASSOCIATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENGINEERING GEOLOGISTS AND THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA
SERVING PROFESSIONALS IN
ENGINEERING GEOLOGY, ENVIRONMENTAL GEOLOGY, AND HYDROGEOLOGY
Review Editor. Duties include finding newly published books on topics in environmental geology, engineering geology, hydrology, and related fields and soliciting reviewers to write a two to three page review of the book for publication in an issue of EEG.
For more information…
and to indicate your interest in this voluntary position, contact Co-Editor Abdul Shakoor (ashakoor@kent.edu) or Co-Editor Brian Katz (eegeditorbkatz@gmail.com).
AEG’s Bryan Receives 2020 Distinguished Practice Award from GSA P atricia Bryan was selected for the 2020 Distinguished Practice Award by the Geological Society of America’s Environmental and Engineering Geology promotes continuing education particularly in remediation of environmental contamination, new
Division (EEGD). The award recognizes outstanding individuals methods for protecting groundfor their continuing contributions to the technical and/or profes- water, protection of public health sional stature of environmental and/or engineering geology in and safety through professional
North America. Patricia was recognized at EEGD’s virtual awards licensure, and on the ground ceremony held October 28 during GSA’s 2020 Connects Online work in making contaminated
Meeting and received a commemorative plaque. sites cleaner and usable.
Patricia’s colleague and AEG Chicago Chapter Chair Christopher Stohr nominated Patricia for the award. In his nomination citation, Christopher wrote: Patricia has more than 33 years of experience in environmental consulting, and since 2014 has served as President
Ms. Patricia M. Bryan is a pioneer in the practical profes- and Principal Geologist of Bryan Environmental Consultants, sion of environmental geology in North America through Inc., a Chicago-based environmental consulting firm specialher work in consulting and as an entrepreneur as a izing in due diligence, Phase I and II ESAs, site remediation, leading authority on assessment and remediation of and brownfields redevelopment. Patricia is a former President brownfields. As an innovator and leader in environmental of the AEG Foundation, former Chair of AEG’s North Central remediation, Patricia Bryan has and continues to provide Section, and Member of the Illinois Board of Licensing for practical leadership in applied geology consulting, Professional Geologists.
