Professional Engineering Licensure Statistics for Engineering and Engineering Technology Faculty

Graduates of engineering technology programs are unable to become licensed as professional engineers in a few states and in several states can only be licensed after satisfying more stringent educational and/or employment requirements. Yet students in both engineering and engineering technology programs are taught by a percentage of faculty who are licensed professional engineers. Licensed engineers not only can present technical concepts to the students but can also explain the limitations, best practices, industry standards, and ethical considerations that students need to consider in applying those concepts in their careers. This paper presents a snapshot of the percentage of faculty in various engineering programs throughout the country who are licensed professional engineers and compares that with the percentage found for various engineering technology programs. Data were collected through evaluation of departmental websites, as well as by directly emailing department chairs. A total of 26 institutions with engineering programs and 27 institutions with engineering technology programs were contacted between September 2019 and March 2020. This paper also presents results for all engineering programs evaluated with those having very high research activity. Results indicate that engineering technology programs employ professionally licensed faculty in percentages comparable to, if not exceeding, those in engineering programs.