The Department of Environmental, Earth, and Geospatial Sciences at North Carolina Central University received accreditation from the National Environmental Health Science and Protection Accreditation Council (EHAC) on June 19, 2009. The university’s award of full accreditation is an indicator of the quality of the curriculum designed to prepare students who intend to become environmental health science and protection practitioners and professionals. NCCU is the only fully EHAC-accredited HBCU in the State of North Carolina.

Curriculum courses include Food Sanitation and Safety, Water Quality and Control, Air Quality and Control, Principles of Industrial Hygiene Occupational Safety, and other courses that further the discipline. They are also required to have 300 contact hours in internship experience. Students may intern with organizations such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), county health departments, or the State Division of Environmental Health in the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Dr. Yolanda Anderson, interim dean of the College of Science and Technology and former chair of the Environmental Science department, said, “It is important for students to attend an accredited program. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is moving toward a regulation that will require graduation from an accredited program before employment in the public health services field at the local level. Graduation from an accredited program is a requirement for employment in the U.S. Public Health Service. In this region of North Carolina, NCCU has the only accredited program.”

According to their website, “The National Accreditation Council for Environmental Health Curricula was established in 1967 to implement a program accrediting undergraduate and graduate programs in the field of environmental health.”