Building Engineering Programs & ABET

1. Context

In 2002, Shippensburg University had Computer Science faculty, a growing department, and no engineering programs. Worse, there were shrinking options for students throughout the commonwealth to even have the chance to pursue their dreams. Engineering requires more than curriculum: it requires ABET accreditation to be credible in the marketplace, laboratory infrastructure, cross-departmental coordination with Physics and Mathematics, and state governance approval through the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Board of Governors.

Most universities that build engineering programs hire faculty first, then develop programs. In a resource-constrained PASSHE institution, that path was unavailable. Programs would not be approved without demonstrated demand, and faculty could not be hired for programs that did not exist.

2. The Problem

The challenge was't that we did not know what an engineering program should look like. The challenge was building one from a standing start, inside an institution whose governance, budget cycles, and existing organizational structure had not been designed for it.

And not just one program. The strategic objective was to create a full suite of engineering programs — Computer, Software, Electrical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering — before any other PASSHE university had done so. PASSHE's uniqueness policy at the time meant approval for a program that duplicated an existing offering at another state institution would be refused.

3. Why Existing Thinking Failed

The standard model — hire faculty, build labs, then create programs — required capital the institution could not commit without demonstrable enrollment. The standard accreditation model — create programs, then earn accreditation later — risked years of graduates holding degrees of uncertain external credibility.

Both models assumed the program would be justified after the fact. Neither addressed how to build credibility and demand simultaneously, from a standing start, at an institution without engineering infrastructure.

4. My Approach

Build the courses first. Develop the curriculum years before the degree programs exist. Identify the cross-departmental dependencies — Mathematics, Physics — and align with those faculty. Make each course genuinely useful to students independently of whether a degree program existed.

When the moment arrived to propose the programs, the curriculum would already be proven, the faculty relationships would already be established, and the enrollment numbers could be demonstrated, not projected.

Work incrementally through the governance process rather than seeking approval for everything at once. Each approved program provided evidence and precedent for the next.

The Fab Lab was the physical expression of this philosophy: secure capital before articulating the full vision, let the infrastructure speak, and use demonstrated capability to justify expanded investment.

5. Technical Solution

The concrete output over twelve years:

B.S. Computer Engineering (approved 2011) — first true ABET-accreditable engineering program at Shippensburg and any PASSHE university; 60+ students enrolled within three years, admitting ~30 freshmen and transfers annually
B.S. Software Engineering (approved 2012) — co-developed with Dr. Wellington; earned commendation from the Chancellor's office for quality of Board of Governors presentation
B.S. Electrical Engineering (approved 2014) — completed two years of curriculum development; at approval, Shippensburg became the only PASSHE university to offer CE, SE, and EE simultaneously
B.S. Mechanical Engineering and B.S. Civil Engineering — initiated 2016; at approval, the first such programs in PASSHE, and one of the fastest growth areas for the university.

Today, the Milton and Doreen Morgan School of Engineering is fully ABET accredited and serves more than 200 undergraduate students from across the commonwealth.

Supporting infrastructure:

Fabrication Lab: over $200,000 secured from internal and external sources; students progressed from concept and copper-clad sheets to custom fabricated circuit boards populated with components and programmed with custom software; required hundreds of hours of training, process development, and instructional material creation
11 new courses created and coordinated, each with developed syllabi, course objectives, and assessment plans
ABET Self-Study Coordinator for Computer Engineering (2014–2016): completed full self-study process leading to accreditation
Embedded systems textbook: nearly 700 pages, 200+ source code examples, historical perspective spanning 50 years of microcontroller development; prepared for consideration by Pearson

Curriculum Artifacts

The courses built for these programs produced working technical artifacts — not toy examples, but systems used to teach engineers to build systems. A selection, organized by course:

Course	Artifact	Repository
Advanced Operating Systems	Bootable kernel in Assembly/C with memory management and process scheduling	NanoKernel
Computer Architecture	5-stage MIPS32 pipeline simulator with hazard detection	MIPS Pipeline Visualizer
Digital Logic Design	Java implementation of Quine-McClusky logic minimization	QuineMcClusky
Embedded Systems	Sensorless BLDC motor controller with soft-start; PIC32 code and OrCAD schematics	BLDC Controller
FPGA Design	SystemVerilog I2C controller, developed alongside instructional video series	I2C in Verilog
Embedded Systems	Form-based code generator for Tiva C USB library	Tiva USB Creator
Artificial Intelligence	Russell & Norvig state space search algorithms	Search
Artificial Intelligence	First-order logic reasoner using Horn clauses and skolemization	Knowledger
AI / Game Theory	Connect-N adversarial player using minimax with alpha-beta pruning	Connect Four AI
Machine Learning	K-Means and spring-force clustering; evolutionary SVM kernel selection	Clustering, CompositeKernel

The full set is catalogued at /archive/projects.

6. Organizational Challenges

Every degree program required Pennsylvania State System Board of Governors approval — a formal governance process with structured submission requirements, committee review, and public presentation. The Software Engineering proposal earned specific commendation for presentation quality.

The PASSHE uniqueness policy created a strategic constraint: programs could only be approved if no other state university offered them. This meant the sequencing of program development had direct competitive significance.

Building engineering within a liberal arts institution required negotiating space, budget, faculty lines, and infrastructure investment against existing disciplines. The Fab Lab required justifying capital expenditure before the programs it served were at full enrollment.

Cross-departmental coordination with Physics and Mathematics was essential and ongoing — neither department had been organized around engineering prerequisites before these programs existed.

7. Outcome

Five engineering degree programs created. More than 100 students enrolled in the early years, with continued growth. Shippensburg became the only PASSHE institution to offer Computer, Software, and Electrical Engineering simultaneously — before the uniqueness policy closed those opportunities to others.

The Provost's Award for Extraordinary Service recognized the Software Engineering program creation specifically. The Best Faculty Paper Award (PACISE 2015) recognized continuing research output alongside administrative leadership.

The embedded systems textbook — nearly complete — represents the teaching philosophy in permanent form: rigorous, technology-agnostic, built to outlast any particular platform.

8. Lessons That Generalize

Build the infrastructure before the mandate. Courses developed years before degree programs existed created the evidence needed to justify those programs. The governance process rewards demonstrated viability more than projected viability.

Accreditation is doctrine, not bureaucracy. ABET accreditation is not a compliance exercise. It is a structured way of ensuring engineering programs produce engineers who can do engineering. The discipline of building to ABET criteria — learning outcomes, program assessment, continuous improvement — produces better programs, not just credentialed ones.

Capital investment multiplies individual capacity. The Fab Lab did not just give students better equipment. It changed what was possible to teach, and what students could prove they could build. Infrastructure investment is pedagogy.

Governance takes longer than engineering. Every significant program creation required two to four years of preparation, negotiation, and formal approval process. The technical curriculum was never the constraint. Patience in governance was.

Programs outlast the people who built them. Hundreds of students have passed through these programs. The engineering culture — ABET assessment, hands-on fabrication, research engagement — continues independent of any individual contributor.