Advocating a Renewed Culture of Surveying Education

Abstract

In recent years torrents of ink have been spent describing the pros and cons of removing the field of surveying education from the umbrella of engineering or, more precisely, civil engineering. For a time, the uproar was so loud and incessant that an orchestrated effort by professional associations—none affiliated with the American Society of Civil Engineers ASCE —successfully decreased the career academic standards for surveyors, which have continued to degenerate in the confusing impasse that we are confronting now. This impromptu ill-advised movement brought about the beliefs that the original Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology—ABET EAC —was too scientifically advanced and rigorous in their curriculum requirements and that the creation of new accreditations, more technological and applied in scope, were necessary. Accordingly, we witnessed the birth of less stringent and more permissive educational certifications such as the ABET ASAC , accredited by the Applied Science Accreditation Commission. Was this a wise move? In retrospect, and restricting ourselves to the surveying profession, the answer is probably no. It is becoming perfectly clear that many of the revolutionary measuring technologies sprouting profusely these days are more in tune with the surveying engineering field than with the land surveying field. I am specifically referring to novel and broadly based scientific realms such as Global Navigation Satellite Systems GNSS , inertial navigation systems INS , terrestrial and airborne LiDAR Light Detection and Ranging , laser tracking and sophisticated terrestrial scanning devices, building information modeling BIM , and digital photogrammetry. Do these topics belong in the curriculum of a two-year technology program? The answer is an emphatic no! This limited amount of time gives opportunity to learn the subjects only superficially.—Knowing how to sequentially press instrument keys is not exactly what a professional surveying engineer should be primarily concerned with. Could we draw a time line and start again, practically from scratch, with our expectations focused on the coming decades? In my humble opinion we are compelled to scientifically invigorate the surveying engineering profession for the benefit of future generations of certified professionals. It is imperative that all states require, besides pertinent experience, a minimum of a four-year college degree in surveying engineering before a license is granted. Why emphasize surveying engineering? Because with the exception of boundary location procedures, all surveying specializations have historically been closely intertwined with civil engineering, e.g., road and highway layouts, structural deforma-