Olivet Nazarene University’s Department of Engineering has quietly been excelling in a national competition, going up against some of the best engineering schools in the country. The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) Education Award is an annual competition to recognize programs for their curriculum and mission to advance licensure in order to safeguard the health, safety and welfare of the public.
To put into perspective how well Olivet’s program has done, over the past four years (the only years in which Olivet has made a submission), Olivet and the University of Wisconsin-Madison are the only schools to have been recognized as some form of a winner in each of those four years.
For this competition, all of Olivet’s senior engineering students are divided into groups to collaborate on a design project. Most of these projects come from real needs presented to the Department of Engineering by local businesses. “A real-world project challenges students to consider the end user in a way that a theoretical project cannot,” says Department Chair Scott Ragan. “This requires the consideration of client needs, time constraints and buildability,”
To participate in this contest, a senior design poster, along with an abstract and a project description, is submitted to NCEES. Following are Olivet’s submissions and prizes over the past four years:
- 2022 – Logan Nazarene Campground – winner of $10,000 award
- 2023 – Automated Cutting and Splicing Machine – winner of $10,000 award
- 2024 – Efficient, Affordable and Accessible House Design – Honorable Mention (the only Honorable Mention over this four-year period)
- 2025 – FM Renovation and Addition – Winner of $10,000 award
Three of these projects have fallen under the Architectural concentration, led by Professor Scott Ragan, while the fourth (2023) was under the Electrical concentration, led by Dr. Aram Agajanian. For each of the cash awards received, the Department has gifted $1,000 to each participating student.
From the 2025 STEM Report. Read the full Issue here.
