ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology), the organization responsible for accrediting engineering programs, has devised a new plan for evaluating engineering programs. The new plan is called ABET 2000. In the past, ABET has prescribed the curriculum, staffing, and facilities for all accredited engineering programs. This led to a uniform engineering curriculum throughout the United States but stifled innovation and did not allow engineering programs to develop their own specialties.

ABET 2000 is an assessment based program that allows each engineering department to develop their own plan for their undergraduate program. This plan must adhere to ABET's general guidelines but can vary significantly from one institution to another. Each program must produce their own set of objectives and outcomes and establish an assessment program that measures how well the outcomes are being met by the program. Program deficiencies discovered in the assessment process are corrected by changing the curriculum or by revising the plan.

This web site contains the ABET 2000 Plan for the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of New Mexico.