ABET is pleased to have the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) as an innovation partner sponsor for the 2026 ABET Symposium, April 15-18 in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. NCEES is one of the ABET founding member societies, working side-by-side with ABET in engineering education and licensure.
While ABET accredits engineering programs to ensure academic quality, NCEES facilitates state boards in licensing professional engineers through standardized testing and experience. Graduates from ABET-accredited engineering programs are generally considered by NCEES and state boards to have met the educational requirements for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam and subsequent licensure. NCEES CEO, Davy McDowell, talks about his decision to sponsor the Symposium.
Why Was it Important for Your Organization to Sponsor the 2026 ABET Symposium?
What I find is NCEES and ABET is a true partnership. From the NCEES perspective, we know the first steps to engineering and surveying licensure is the educational piece. Professors are some of the most influential people for our engineering and surveying students and this is an opportunity to meet and talk with them about the process and how we can help them help us.
Tell Me About Your Relationship With ABET.
NCEES and ABET have had a long history of working together. NCEES is the organization putting together licensure exams for individual states to license engineers and surveyors. All the licensure laws across the country include an educational requirement and that is generally an ABET-accredited degree. Our states rely heavily on the ABET-accreditation to match the needs of the educational requirements for being a licensed engineer in their state. Engineering licensure and surveying licensure laws have been on the books since the early 1900s. While ABET and NCEES haven’t been tied at the hip that long, but to some extent we have had some relations because of those licensure laws from ABET and NCEES existence.
What is One Thing You Want Participants to Take Away from the Symposium and Their Interaction With NCEES?
Our Fundamentals of Engineering exam is a test of the knowledge a student should have gained in school. This feels like a place for the institutions and attendees at the Symposium to understand how they might use that exam in the assessment side of things. I also want them to understand the licensure process a bit better, so it doesn’t seem like a foreign thing to discuss with students.
ABET is thrilled to have NCEES as an innovation partner sponsor for the 2026 ABET Symposium. Davy will be one of the idea spotlight keynotes at the second plenary and a speaker at a breakout session. To see when the NCEES presentation is, as well as the rest of the event schedule, visit the ABET Symposium website.