In addition to serving as a teacher on campus, a computer science professor will be shouldering additional responsibility in an accreditation board outside of campus.

Lu Yuan, an occupational, safety, health and environment professor and certified safety specialist, has been appointed to the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology Applied and Natural Science Accreditation Commission. Yuan will be a member-at-large and will serve on the 2020-2021 executive committee.

Yuan was approached by the executive committee last summer and was asked if he was interested in becoming an executive member. Yuan explained how he got the position to be on the board.

“You have to be appointed as a commissioner for the commission of the ABET,” said Yuan. “That is done by different affiliate organizations that are associated with ABET. I was appointed four years ago after serving for a period of time.”

While serving the board as a commissioner, Yuan will also be a team chair member who visits institutions seeking to be accredited or re-accredited. As a committee member, he will be included in decision making.

Yuan gave insight into the long-term position on the board.

“The appointment is year by year,” stated Yuan. “For commissioner, the timeline if you perform all the requirements and expectations would be a total of five years as a term limit. As a member-at-large, I would serve for two to three years. If I continue to do well, I would become mostly likely a chair for operations, then chair-elect, then eventually the chair for the commission.”

While serving on the board, the position will not affect Yuan’s responsibilities at the university.

“It’s actually a class,” said Yuan. “ABET is all about quality assurance of the programs. I have been doing assessments and prep for accreditation for our own OSHE program ever since I’ve become a faculty member at Southeastern in 2007.”

Yuan commented on what he is looking forward to on the board and how the university’s Occupational Safety, Health and Environment program has helped students get scholarships.

“It’s definitely a praise on what I’ve been doing over the last years,” commented Yuan. “Also, it would help solidify our program. In a recent press release by the university, one of our students won a national scholarship and it said that our program helped.”

Yuan also explained how the OSHE program has been credited by independent websites.

“Our program has been ranked by two independent websites, top 20 consistently. That shows the quality of our program,” explained Yuan.

The time on the executive board is voluntary, but Yuan believes that it would help the quality of the OSHE program for students in the future.

“It’s a volunteer role but basically I spend time and effort,” said Yuan. “It’s a good pay off to continue our program at the university and also apply that to our daily teaching to our students and making sure they are getting good quality education and good jobs after graduation.”