The state of the chemical engineering curriculum: Report from the 2016 survey

The AIChE Education Division Survey Committee annually asks chemical engineering department faculty about course offerings in core topics in chemical engineering; recent surveys include controls (2015), the transport sequence (2014), and elective courses (2013). The most recent survey took a step back from the individual topics to consider the curriculum as a whole. Prior to ABET 2000, accreditation criteria cultivated a high level of similarity in chemical engineering curricula. Now that two whole accreditation cycles have passed under the much less prescriptive criteria, how has the curriculum changed overall? Survey questions addressed not only the degree of change but the process for change and the internal and external drivers for those changes. Responses indicate that change overall is most commonly incremental, although some departments have engaged in a wholesale revision of their curriculum.