The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) recently revised their published list of programspecific criteria. Beginning during the 2014-15 cycle, all engineering programs which include “optical” and “photonic” in their titles must meet new specific criteria to receive ABET accreditation. One portion of the wording under the curriculum section states “The curriculum must prepare students to have knowledge of and appropriate laboratory experience in: geometrical optics, physical optics, optical materials, and optical and/or photonic devices and systems.” Last year, the Rose-Hulman optical engineering curriculum committee revised our baccalaureate degree program. A portion of this effort sought to improve alignment to the ABET program-specific criteria. Here we review the outcomes of this effort, including our documented continuous improvement process, the realignment of our existing courses along the four tracks laid out by ABET, and the introduction of new undergraduate courses to improve student learning.

Date Published: 8 October 2015
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 9793, Education and Training in Optics and Photonics: ETOP 2015, 979321 (8 October 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2223192

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9793:
Education and Training in Optics and Photonics: ETOP 2015