Institute of Professional Environmental Practice now offers an easy, curriculum-comprehensive evaluation tool for use by Environmental Science Programs, both graduate and undergraduate, to gauge the academic performance of graduates. IPEP's exams offer University programs a competitiveness Metric based on an aggregate anonymous exam report that has been evaluated to include an industry standard body of knowledge. This metric can be used both internally for curriculum development and externally for state/federal program reports. In a concentrated effort to create a reliable, balanced view of the subject matter, IPEP’s exams are developed by environmental professionals working across the sectors of industry, agency, academia, and consulting.
Successful completion of the exam will also qualify your students for the EPI, IPEP’s entry level credential for environmental professionals, giving them full access to our international network of QEPs, top-tier practicing professionals with specialties across media including: Air Quality; Water Quality; Solid and Hazardous Waste Management; and Environmental Science, Management, and Policy. IPEP also offers a Mentor Program, which matches an EPI with a QEP by geographic area and/or specialty area of interest. Other services offered by IPEP include active use of social media as a means to broadcast conferences, training opportunities, and other events that many of our Participating Organizations offer.
EXAMPLES IN ACTION:
DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY: This program is used by the Environmental Science & Management Program at Duquesne University. DU has instituted a mandatory entrance and exit exam for the program’s graduate students using IPEP’s General Science exam (also known as the Environmental Professional In-Training or EPI exam). They track achievement from the beginning to the end of the graduate program and can use that data as a direct metric for reviewing and updating program curricula as necessary.
UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS: The Department of Crop, Soil, and Environmental Sciences (CSES) at the University Of Arkansas (UA) initiated use of certification exams in 2008 as an assessment tool. CSES Assessment tools include written and oral exit interviews with graduates, 5-yr post-graduate surveys of alumni, and as of 2008, the use of IPEP's EPI certification exams. Graduating students take the General Environmental Science exam in the spring of their final year.