There Is Some Wrong Headed Thinking In The CE Requirements
From the PA Board site:
"In order to help safeguard life, health and property and to promote the public welfare, the practice of professional engineering, professional land surveying and professional geology in this Commonwealth requires continuing professional competency."
"Section 4.5. Continuing Professional Competency Requirements.
(a) In order to safeguard life, health and property and to promote the public welfare, the practice of professional engineering, professional land surveying and professional geology in this commonwealth requires continuing professional education."
"Section 4.5(b) of the Engineer, Land Surveyor and Geologist Registration Law requires that each licensee shall be required to meet the continuing professional competency requirements as a condition for licensure renewal."
Continuing Professional Education does not neccessarily equal Continuing Professional Competency.
There are other ways of showing competency. For instance a PA PLS might take and pass a 2 hour PLS exam in another state. Certainly that is a sign of competency, but no credit is given for that. A 2 hour exam is much more rigorous than 2 hours of class time, and in such an event one should receive 6-8 PDHs.
“College or unit semester hour” or “college or unit quarter hour” shall mean credit for courses in programs approved by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology or the National Association of State Boards of Geology or other related college courses.
"(i) One college or unit semester hour shall equal forty-five PDH units."
The above is good, but: the requirement is 24 PDHs per 2 year license period. If one has additional hours one can only carry 12 PDHs into the next cycle/
Assuming you take a 3 credit surveying course you qualify for 135 PDHs. You can use 24 now and 12 in the next cycle, but you have to throw 99 PDHs away. I am of the opinion that real education gained over a period of weeks stays with you longer than a one day course. Therefore I am also of the opinion that actual college credit should be good over 2 or 3 renewal cycles. Uncouraging surveyors to take actual course will do much more to improve the professional competency of the profession.
I believe that one of the intents of continuing education was to bring the level of education of the experience only man to the level of the well educated man. If so then approach that goal head on.
Paul in PA
New York? Dont bet on it... especially if not provided by a pre approved provider. And, if the course is not technically related to land surveying, New York will not allow the hours
There Is Some Wrong Headed Thinking In The CE Requirements
Oh, so it's a backhanded way of cramming the degree requirement down our throats, then?
That makes it so much better, and just as (un)necessary.
New York is the same as Louisiana, posted below. If the course comes from an ABET accredited program and instructor within the program, then it is approved. The one caveat on college courses is that you can't get credit for re-taking a course that was part of your degree that you got credit for when obtaining the license. Of course it has to still be a survey related topic according to the board. In NY these days that seems to mean a very limited area of topics which is much narrower than what is and has been actually taught in a surveying degree program in the state since the 1970's.
The real fight is about content areas rather than providers. And the real enemy is the Engineers, Architects, Geologists political lobbying groups (not the individuals in these professions). It's not that they want to do some of the same things surveyors do, rather that they want to stop surveyors from continuing to do them as well.
ABET Not Required For Coursework In PA
ABET however is recognized as superior to other coursework. In PA for 1 ABET credit hour of college coursework you will be given 45 Professional Development Hours. This is recognizing that 1 college credit represents 15 hours of class time or 45 hours of lab time. Colleges typically expect a student to spend at least 3 hours outside of each class hour preparing.
The above is good, by practically useless. For the typical 3 credit course you would receive 135 PDHs. But since you can only use 24 in the first cycle and carry 12 into the second cycle you are throwing 99 PDHs away.
However, non ABET college courses fall into the category of coursework.
""Course" shall mean any qualifying course with a clear purpose and objective which will maintain, improve or expand the skills and knowledge relevant to a licensee's professional practice."
One hour of course work equals 1 PDH, so a typical 3 credit course represent 45 contact hours. Using 24 and 12 you still throw away 9 hours, but it serves the purpose more economically. A typical community college course is far cheaper than any ABET course on the planet.
PA is following the NCEES Model Law. If your state law also follows the Model Law, please read it carefully.
Local community college courses you should consider are Business Law, Real Estate Law, Statistics, CADD, Traffic Safety, plus non coursework OSHA Requirements, HAZMAT training, Computer database or Excel training etc. Carlson College and other manufacturer training qualifies.
Get the most for your money.
Paul in PA
ABET Not Required For Coursework In PA
In NY the course from the ABET accredited program works basically the same way your PA non-ABET course does, as far as credit goes.
In NY ABET is also recognized as superior.
If the course is not part of an ABET program it is not pre-approved as anything and neither is the instructor. You must check first to see if you will get any credit at all.
There are three parts to get credit; first the provider, second the instructor, third the topic. The state is likely to accept the provider as long the college has some other recognized regional accreditation. They will look at the instructor credentials next, and then the topic.
NY may be accepting some business topics now, but in the past they would not have accepted business or real estate courses. If it doesn't have to do with a piece of survey equipment or measurement, or a land boundary, then you get no credit (see my post above).
Tommy Young, Auburn Is ABET Certified
The CE Department among many others. I believe any Auburn surveying courses come under the CE Department. In PA and many other states any continuing education by an ABET program is preapproved. The approval follows the course provider, i.e. Auburn. If that same Milton Denny course would have been OKed at the State Society Convention then you, as the consumer, also have a Restraint of Trade complaint.
What state is this?
Paul in PA
> Most of us would take courses and/or attend seminars anyway.
> There are plenty of sleepers in the back of the room.
If by 'most of us', you mean members of the Beer Leg or Survey Connect boards, I would agree with you.
Unfortunately, if you mean most licensees, I would have to disagree. Your second quoted line above is what I see all too frequently. Too often, I have been at seminars where the front half of the class is listening and asking questions while the back half is nodding or talking amongst their selves.
I have been to a number of courses where local surveyors have shown up solely because this was the seminar topic being taught locally, so they did not have to travel anywhere for their hours. The topic would have absolutely no relevance or interest for them, but it was at a convenient location.
Even among those I know who attend a CPD course willing and without complaint, there are many who are of the opinion that all they need is the mandatory hours. Even with a very interesting subject and something that could potentially be good for their business, they will not attend because they have already obtained their minimum required hours.
As for improving the profession, I would partially agree that a CPD requirement does not in and of itself improve the profession. Making someone who is not interested in further professional development take a course where they just nod off or talk with friends in the back of the class does not accomplish the goal. However, the standards set are a minimum required. It is no different than any of the standards that have been placed - usually due to those few practitioners who couldn't be trusted to act professionally on their own.
There are a number of folks who have been disciplined for lack of CPD hours (even some falsely reporting having taken courses). In these instances, I often wonder if they are willing to not try and grow professionally (or lie on a report), what other poor practices might they have that need looking into. So in that sense, it might help remove some folks from practice that need to be removed - thereby improving the profession.
> I now take only the required number of hours. Before MANDATORY continuing education I took many more.
> Some years I have had to pass on courses that I thought would be interesting and educational because I didn't NEED the hours. Too bad, very sad.
>
I agree - very sad.
The very sad part being that if you were doing something you found to be professionally or personally beneficial, you would stop doing so solely because your licensing board decided others who were not trying to grow professionally might need to try and keep up with a minimal amount of what you claim to have been doing. Passing up on potential "interesting and educational" opportunities out of spite hurts only you.
> .... This is nothing more than a way to bring in more money to the state associations and to the professional continuing education providers, by throwing up roadblocks to keep others shut out.
Things are much worse than you know Tommy. My courses have been turned down for reasons as insane as my failing to include on the application the course number they were going to assign to the course after they received the application.
As for this being a scheme to help the societies and the providers, on that count you are totally wrong. I have been working "in the system" a long time now. Trust me there is no conspiracy to help anyone. Mostly the crazy rules are in place because someone in government was trying to make their own job easier.
The problem is making the job of the administrators easier sometimes leads to some wacky consequences. As an example, in your own state of TN, if I propose to teach a class in Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga and Bristol, that is considered 4 different classes and requires 4 different approvals.
Why isn't one instructor teaching one topic considered one class? My best guess is the board wants to know (and approve) the date, location, and name of the building in which the class will be taught so they can send a representative if they wish. (See what I mean about making the regulators job easy.) My position is the instructor and topic are important. The date, city, and name of the building in which class will be taught are irrelevant. But if your focus is making the job of the regulator easy, those things become as important as the topic and instructor.
Did I mention that that one class taught by one instructor in 4 cities requires me to send 4 different applications with 4 sets of handouts and 4 certificates to each board member?
Like I said, the surveyors don't know the half of it.
Larry P