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Connecticut licensing board pauses several licensure cases amid debate on whether graduate coursework can substitute for ABET undergraduate degree
Summary
The state licensing board spent a large portion of its meeting debating whether a Carnegie Mellon master’s or doctoral research can offset the absence of an ABET-accredited undergraduate engineering degree. Members voted to table multiple applications pending clarification and an imminent NCEES task force report.
The Connecticut state licensing board spent the bulk of its meeting on a policy question that could affect how the state evaluates licensure applications: whether graduate coursework or post‑degree research can stand in for the ABET‑accredited four‑year undergraduate engineering degree the board has required for decades.
Board members cited the same dilemma in several reconsideration cases. The discussion centered on an applicant who holds a non‑ABET BS in geoscience from Montclair State and a master’s in environmental engineering from Carnegie Mellon. Some board members and outside evaluators (NCEES) have judged the graduate coursework to provide the breadth of engineering credits the board usually requires from an ABET undergraduate program; other members said the board’s long‑standing policy — designed for consistency and fairness to earlier applicants — requires the ABET undergraduate credential.
“Consistency that we’ve worked hard to maintain is very important,” the chair said, urging caution about changing the standard. Other members said NCEES evaluations have increasingly labeled some domestic or foreign coursework as ‘‘equivalent’’ and that the board may need to decide how much weight to give those evaluations.
Faced with no clear path, the board voted to table all applications that hinge on non‑ABET undergraduate education and to await the findings of an NCEES task force the chair said was due to issue a report shortly. The motion to table carried; the board instructed staff to request further documentation or evaluation where appropriate.
The action affects multiple pending applicants whose records include non‑ABET undergraduate degrees supplemented by graduate coursework. Board members asked staff to obtain NCEES evaluations where absent and to reframe communications to applicants explaining what additional information the board needs.
The tabling decision followed other contested cases in which members debated whether activity performed during doctoral enrollment — research, experiments and project work at university labs — should count as post‑degree qualifying engineering experience. In a separate reconsideration, the board asked an applicant working at Yale to confirm whether the role is paid full‑time employment and whether the work is supervised by a licensed engineer; the application was tabled pending that clarification.
Next steps: the board instructed staff to (1) request confirmations from applicants about the employment status and duration of work claimed as post‑degree experience; (2) obtain or update NCEES equivalency evaluations where needed; and (3) revisit the handful of tabled applications once the NCEES task force guidance and the requested applicant documentation are available.
