Should engineering faculty be licensed? 13

[lacajun]

Opinion Piece on licensing of faculty

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[zdas04]

As I've said in these forums before, when my son was in Engineering School he was told by the department head of ME that Co-op was a waste of time and that my son "would learn everything he needed to know in the classroom and labs". This individual had never received a paycheck from a non-academic entity in his life and he is making that kind of impact on the industry. That was several years ago and I'm still angry about it.

I would go beyond the authors of the article and not only require anyone teaching a Junior/Senior/Graduate Engineering course to have a P.E., but to also say that: (1) academic effort should not count toward experience requirements unless there is actual supervision of the EIT professor by a P.E. professor; and (2) ABET should pull the accreditation of any school that blatantly ignores state license laws (ignoring the law is absolutely an ethics issue).

I've often thought that I'd like to teach in an Engineering school when I get tired of consulting. With an MSME and a P.E. I would not even be considered for the faculty of most Engineering schools today, and if I happened to get hired it would be as a second class citizen unless I got a PhD first. Something feels wrong with that picture.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[xnuke]

David, you can still find faculty positions at some teaching universities that don't require a doctorate. I did, with my M.S. and P.E. I used to be a full-time consulting engineer and a part-time faculty member, but I've reversed that. I even get my students working on my consulting problems, and they love it!

The problem is often finding younger working engineers (who haven't reached retirement age) willing to take a pay cut and accept a faculty salary. Mine was around 25%, but I'm able to make up the difference by consulting part-time. If universities were willing to hire retired engineers, they would have higher faculty turnover rates, which is problematic.

Not all engineers are cut out for teaching, either. Many don't have the patience, or don't relate well to students, etc. I approach teaching the way I was taught to be an instructor in the Navy nuclear power program, and I think the instructor training I received helps make me a better engineering educator.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[zdas04]

As I recall the instructors in Vallejo in 1972, I've never heard of a college class that would tolerate those training techniques. The guy with the chalk in one hand and an eraser in the other would be especially offensive to students who object to not having the PowerPoints printed out before class. The guy who threw the eraser at anyone nodding off would be in court for assault before Halloween. Great school. Changed my life (I was a D- student in high school and magna cum laude in university). Not kinder and gentler.

I look at the adds at the end of the SPE and ASME magazines and they're all pretty specific about PhD. Maybe I should look elsewhere.

I'm not sure that turnover is as much a problem as universities want to make it appear. I had some professors in grad school that had been there forever and were really mailing it in, had the attitude that they had heard every stupid question and lame excuse ever invented and really didn't want to hear it again--that attitude projects apathy and gets apathy in return. New instructors have a tendency to be nervous and excited. That isn't all bad.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[beej67]

Requiring every engineering PHD in the country to meet the PE work experience requirements before teaching would make it nearly impossible to find professors. The lack of knowledge academics have in the business world is tempered by the fact that students have to get that business engineering experience to get their PE. One year of post grad education max towards your PE is a good rule, which is what most states follow as far as I'm aware. I think the current rules are about right.

Now, if (god forbid) states started to drop the work experience requirement, then having profs with work experience would be a lot more important.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[Maui]

David, unless you're willing to work as an adjunct professor, I wouldn't even bother looking for an academic position. They place zero value on your industrial experience, and since you don't have a Ph.D. either you wouldn't even make it past the first round. I have my Ph.D. and a PE and 20+ years of industrial experience, and I worked as an adjunct professor in the College of Engineering at Syracuse University for 9 years. To this day I still haven't gotten one single in-person interview for a full time faculty position at any college or university that I applied to. Not one. There are simply too many candidates. Each opening typically draws 300+ applications, and at least one of those candidates will have exactly the background and experience that they are looking for.

The faculty want you to demonstrate an ability to bring grant money into the university, which is what they consider to be your primary responsibility as a faculty member. They simply assume that anybody who applies could teach their courses. Ever notice how one or two of your former professors were terrible at teaching? The university didn't care as long as they brought in enough money. If you have no history of acquiring grant money then forget it - they won't even consider you.

Maui

http://www.EngineeringMetallurgy.com

 

[zdas04]

Maui,
Something is really wrong with that picture (and it wasn't "one or two" professors that lacked the ability to get students enthusiastic about the subject, it was about half).

In my naive mind, I figured I'd bypass the job posting step and network into a position. Guess that might be a stretch.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[cranky108]

Some of what I am hearing is such a sad view of our education system.

This may sound strange, to some people, but JR colleges really are a much better place to learn. But they don't go beyond the two years.
JR colleges are a much better place to encurage young engineers to enter into the fields. As it seems the major universities don't care about the students.

As engineers we don't have to have a PHD to teach the lower level classes, or even sub for them. We are very qualified in the fields of math, physics, Maybe computer science, chemestry, etc. And it is a position to encurage the students who maybe good at something, but don't know what they want to do.

This is not to say the major universities are not the place to teach, but there are other options than just what is being presented.

 

[xnuke]

beej67,

My state, and many others, I'm sure, counts time teaching engineering courses as time toward licensure:

Oregon Administrative Rule 820-010-0010(4)
Time spent in engineering teaching subsequent to graduation shall be listed as "engineering work."

I really don't like this regulation because it means the work requirement is different than the practice of engineering for engineering faculty.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[msquared48]

David:

I agree with you here. Your son's prof really is dosconnected from reality here. All school does is prepare you for the FE (EIT) exam, nothing more. There is absolutely no way one fresh out of school, ouside of the experience restrictions, could pass the PE, let alone the SE. I did a work-study program for four years, two years as an undergraduate student and two years as a graduate student, and it helped me immensely.

I challenge the profs to take the PE exam and see if they can pass it. At all theory and no field experience, I don't think I would be surprised at the results. Do they even know what the IBC is?



Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

http://mmcengineering.tripod.com

 

[KENAT]

I'll qualify this by saying I've spent my career so far in 'exempt' industry and in the short-medium future so no real advantage to my becoming PE.

Back to the OP, I'd say being PE comes behind more generally having industry experience which itself comes behind fundamentally having some ability as a teacher.

As alluded to above and even in the piece, the majority of universities (or at least the big name ones etc.) seem to put research aspects far before any of the 3 issues I mention.

Plus, for some specialties it could be very difficult to find PE's, as those specialties are primarily practiced in exempt areas of industry.

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[fel3]

I was fortunate that all of my civil engineering professors and most of my other engineering professors had both PhDs and PEs. The two civil lecturers I had each owned an MS and a PE. Most of these guys (and they were all guys) also had at least some "real" work experience behind their PEs. In fact, my engineering school (Fresno State) prefered engineering profs to have some non-academic experience on their resume, though it wasn't required. In addition, several of my civil profs consulted on the side or at least during the summer break.

I generally think that a professor with a PE brings more to the classroom than one without, though one of the best profs I ever had came with zero non-academic experience. He was a newly minted electrical engineering PhD who was handed a civil/mechanical engineering graphics (pre-cad) class an hour before it started and he nailed it. He was starting from scratch and learned it on his own. It didn't hurt that he was also one of the most brilliant people I have ever met.

So, to answer your question: I don't think a PE should be required to be an engineering professor, but I think it should be strongly encouraged.

==========
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill

 

[kylesito]

The other advantage to making professors obtain PE's might be that they would be too busy to keep making our codes more and more detailed based on their research. Or, shockingly enough, maybe simplify a code for once instead of continuing to make them more and more complex when they have to run the calculations on a 'real' project for them.

I recently sat in a panel discussion with several professors from state university's (I was the only 'real-world' representative) for the purpose of reviewing a state engineering course. The topic of teaching about licensure came up and the overwhelming responses of the academics was "well so few civil engineers need registration that it isn't practical to spend a lesson discussing it". There is your problem...

PE, SE
Eastern United States

"If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death!"
~Code of Hammurabi

 

[MrHershey]

At least in my field, the really good professors have taken the PE/SE and have passed it. Great ones will keep it up to date so they can consult and bring in extra $$$.

More important than having professors pass the PE/SE, however, is to ensure that these guys are stressing the importance of EXPERIENCE on their students. Go out and do internships. If you can't get a paid internship, do an unpaid internship. When you have to buy codes for class (as a structural I had to buy ACI 318 and AISC 360 at a minimum), actually READ the codes. Don't just go over the parts for class. Read as much as you can. Once you get out, you are responsible for and expected to know and understand every word in there.

 

[spciesla]

I am grateful that I attended a state university that was focused on under-graduate education, especially in engineering. Most of my professor's had some form of professional experience. A number of them did not have PhD's. From what I hear from the current crop of interns that are attending the same school, that is changing. The school is bringing in more PhD's without industrial experience. If any of my kids want to pursue an engineering education, I'll definitely be looking for a university with a small or non-existent graduate school.

 

[moltenmetal]

In Canada, enginering universities must meet the requirements of the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB). One of those requirements is that a certain fraction of the faculty need P.Eng. licenses. The license is equally meaningless as it is everywhere in practical terms, i.e. unless you are self-employed, the only person you have to convince that you are an engineer is your employer, but the thought is there.

Unfortunately, while "work" experience under the mentorship of a P.Eng. is required (4 yrs total), actual industrial practice working as an engineer is not required to obtain a P.Eng. license. Accordingly, most of the universities' faculty are now pure academics who rarely have meaningful industrial experience. That's different than it was when I was in school- we had a few key profs with some significant industrial work experience, and it made a big difference to the way they taught.

The supply of people wanting to be university professors is apparently limitless here too. At some universities, the "faculty" consists of true faculty (at some unis these amount to something like 25% of the people actually doing the teaching) and contract "faculty"- people who have to re-apply yearly to teach courses they've been teaching for 10+ years in some cases. This is less true in engineering than in some other disciplines, but I wonder for how long.

 

[beej67]

That's very interesting, xnuke. I'm reasonably sure Georgia doesn't allow that. I hope we don't, anyway, I'd never want some guy with zero design experience to have the license to design something and oversee other designers. I know I could only count 1 year worth of post graduate education towards it.

I do get to use time spent teaching as an adjunct towards my continuing education though, at quite a reasonable exchange rate.

On the adjunct thing, I've been fortunate enough to land some adjunct teaching positions at Southern Polytechnic State University here in Atlanta, and had quite a lot of fun with them. I do not know how hard it would be to land a full time job there, as I haven't really explored it, but I do know that they need PHDs to teach any class that's considered an Engineering class, as opposed to an Engineering Technology class, even if the PHD is a crappy teacher and the Masters or other degree holder is an awesome teacher. Quality doesn't matter, degree does. I believe the requirement comes from ABET.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[xnuke]

beej67:

Here's Georgia's statement, courtesy of Georgia Law Governing the Practice of Professional Engineering and Land Surveying:

43-15-10. Evaluation of engineering experience.
(a) For the purpose of determining whether an applicant has acquired the experience required under Code Section 43-15-8 or 43-15-9:
(1) Responsible charge of engineering teaching may, in the board's sole discretion, be considered as responsible charge of engineering work;

ABET's requirements are in their Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs, 2012-2013:

The faculty must be of sufficient number and must have the competencies to cover all of the curricular
areas of the program. There must be sufficient faculty to accommodate adequate levels of student-
faculty interaction, student advising and counseling, university service activities, professional
development, and interactions with industrial and professional practitioners, as well as employers of
students.

The program faculty must have appropriate qualifications and must have and demonstrate sufficient
authority to ensure the proper guidance of the program and to develop and implement processes for the
evaluation, assessment, and continuing improvement of the program, its educational objectives and
outcomes. The overall competence of the faculty may be judged by such factors as education, diversity
of backgrounds, engineering experience, teaching effectiveness and experience, ability to communicate, enthusiasm for developing more effective programs, level of scholarship, participation in professional
societies, and licensure as Professional Engineers.

There is nothing in there requiring a Ph.D.

If the college has a master's or doctoral program, faculty advising graduate students will typically be required to have a doctorate or other terminal degree in the field they are teaching. Also, the majority of grantors will want to have a Ph.D. as the principal investigator on any funded grants, so most universities that want to bring in a lot of research money will only hire faculty with earned doctorates. These are some of the major reasons why almost all faculty have doctorates.

xnuke
"Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life." Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[YoungTurk]

. The topic of teaching about licensure came up and the overwhelming responses of the academics was "well so few civil engineers need registration that it isn't practical to spend a lesson discussing it".

I'll add a similar comment here as over in the other thread about FE/PE testing.

There are a variety of engineering credentials and licensures engineers may be involved with during their careers. A general course reviewing licensure, along with law and ethics as they pertain to the profession of engineering would be a welcome addition to the basic undergraduate engineering education. I can think of more than a few things it could replace.

A suggesting that engineering faculty, on the whole, should be PEs completely overlooks the fact that not all qualified, experienced engineers are PEs. It seems the good folks at eng-tips regularly forget about all the fine engineers who are not PEs for some reason, often because the work in an exempt industry. I'm sure there are at least a few PEs who are twits as well (law of averages).

That said, I am all for professors with real world experience; before I finished my masters I learned that a generic sounding class from an "associate" professor with day job was a much better bet than a fancy sounding class from a professor with a storied academic career.

 

[KENAT]

Easy YoungTurk - you're likely to set me off with that kind of talk - and I'm sure no one wants me to start assaulting that poor deceased equine.

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