July/August 2018

Communities: Education
Cal Poly Program Promotes Professionalism, Licensure

The architectural engineering program at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, the largest four-year program at the university, has a unique history of promoting professional practice, ethics, and professional licensure to its students and faculty alike.

First and foremost, Cal Poly’s ARCE program promotes professional licensure by surrounding students with professionally licensed faculty. All 14 tenured and tenure-track faculty are licensed PEs, and half are licensed structural engineers. The program is also one of the few programs in the nation that has a dual path to tenure. Roughly half the faculty are PhD-credentialed researchers while the other half are professional practitioners with master’s degrees in structural engineering, their SE licenses, and at least a decade of experience in the design industry.

Professor and department head Allen Estes attributes high participation and pass rates on the FE exam to the program’s focus on professionalism and licensure. Roughly 85% of ARCE graduates take the FE exam prior to graduation, and the program has been above the national average passing rate every year for the last two decades.

“A fully licensed faculty, most with decades of experience, serve as role models and everyday examples of professionalism that help us promote the benefits of professional licensure to students,” Estes says.

Because of the program’s unique approach to promoting licensure and professionalism that has helped ARCE students to succeed after graduation, the program was awarded the Walter LeFevre Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers. LeFevre, a former NSPE president, endowed the award that recognizes two programs, one with more than 50 graduates—like Cal Poly—and the other for programs with 50 or fewer graduates, which was presented to Oklahoma State University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Cal Poly’s program is one of 25 ABET-accredited architectural engineering programs across the country.