Letter: CM School Accreditation Is Not a New Phenomenon
The article “CM Schools Boost Standards With First US Accreditations” (ENR 10/19 p. 17) is misleading in its title and inaccurate throughout much of the content. For the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) to state that these “are the first two undergraduate construction management programs independently accredited” ignores the fact that the American Council for Construction Education (ACCE) has been independently accrediting CM programs for more than 40 years. As a former board member of ACCE, CMAA is well aware of this fact.
ACCE was established in 1974 by the Associated General Contractors, the Associated Schools of Construction and other industry groups to be an independent accreditor, promoting the construction profession in all industry sectors and for all forms of contracts. The council now accredits more than 90 programs that specialize in construction, construction management,building science and construction technology—the majority of U.S. programs, including about 14,000 undergraduate students .
ACCE developed its outcomes-based standards to require a balance in a student’s preparation in business, communications, mathematics, science, engineering and architecture—capped off with the specific management skill sets needed for industry success, such as safety, estimating, scheduling and project management. This rigorous view of the skills and knowledge needed by contractors, construction managers, subcontractors and vendors—all of whom hire program graduates—always has made ACCE the leader in CM accreditation.
Construction practitioners created ACCE to become a nationally recognized accrediting body and have supported it. The council purposely seeks out expertise from all construction-related associations and professionals, not just from one source selected by an accrediting body. ACCE welcomes these industry representatives to serve on its board and on its visiting teams as equal partners with academics. This approach has served us for over 40 years. We invite you to view ACCE’s website, acce-hq.org, for more detail on what we do.
Allan Hauck, Ph.D., CPC
Chairman, ACCE Board of Trustees;
CM Department Chair, California
Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, Calif.
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