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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Bruce Perlman; Roli Varma

Session 2793 Teaching Engineering Ethics Bruce Perlman, Roli Varma University of New Mexico, AlbuquerqueAbstractThere is general agreement that engineering students should receive ethics instruction as a part oftheir undergraduate education. However, there are diverse opinions on how engineering ethicsinstruction should be carried out. Philosophy of ethics, the original approach, emphasizesnormative ideals and abstract principles. The new case studies approach focuses on a number ofreal and hypothetical cases. This article shows that teaching one approach or the other does nothelp

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Phillip McReynolds; Andras Gordon; Andrew Lau; Richard Devon

Session 2525 Transformations: Ethics and Design Richard Devon, Andrew Lau, Philip McReynolds, and Andras Gordon Engineering Design & Graphics, Pennsylvania State UniversityAbstractThis paper will focus on an ethics curriculum that has been developed for design projects. Therationale behind it is discussed and some preliminary feedback from students is reviewed. Thecurriculum for the design projects is distinctive in several fundamental ways. These departuresfrom more traditional views of “engineering ethics” were not come by easily and they have takenmany years to develop. 1) We view all design

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

William Frey; Jose Cruz

Session 1520 Ethics and Empowerment: An Ethics Module for Introduction to Computers José A. Cruz, William J. Frey University of Puerto Rico at MayagüezI. IntroductionWe intend to explore a different dimension of practical and professional ethics, one that we cancharacterize as more positive. The dominant view of ethics is that it functions as a limit topower in that it establishes barriers beyond which we cannot go. (A colleague of our talks of laetica como un baden, ethics as a speed bump, an obstacle that we have to get around in

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

John Tharakan

Session1151 Teaching Environmental Engineering Students Ethics, Law and Policy John Tharakan Department of Chemical Engineering, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059AbstractMost conventional introductory courses on environmental engineering are offered as core orelectives courses within chemical or civil engineering departments, with the primary focus usuallybeing on the description and analysis of pollutant generation and transport in water, air, and soil.There is a concomitant discussion and analysis of the physical, chemical and biological treatmenttechnologies that have been developed for

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Victoria Wike

Session 2461 Professional Engineering Ethical Behavior: A Values-based Approach Victoria S. Wike Loyola University ChicagoI would like to argue here in favor of a values-based approach to engineering ethicsbecause of what such an approach can provide. By a values-based approach I meansimply a perspective on one’s professional (or personal) life that focuses on identifyingand enacting values. And by values, I mean those moral goods intrinsically valuable tohuman beings, such as fairness and freedom. A professional ethics that is directed tocommon moral commitments

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

James Globig

Session 2547 Applying a Global Ethic in Engineering Organizations James E. Globig University of DaytonAbstractThe 1980s and early 90s were times of design and manufacturing “catch up” for manycompanies. The American consumer began to look to other countries to satisfy their demandsas the label of “Made in America” came to be seen as shorthand for increased cost and lowquality. In embarking on the new product catch up era, many manufacturers chose to terminatetheir technical and middle management employees and adopt “outsourcing” as a way to acquirelabor

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Beatrice Isaacs; Donald Leone

Session 2525Combining Engineering Design with Professional Ethics Using an Integrated Learning Block Donald Leone, Beatrice Isaacs University of HartfordAbstractThis paper deals with the development of a new sophomore level engineering design course atthe University of Hartford. The new course is part of a NSF grant, “Integrating EngineeringDesign with the Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences and Mathematics”, which impacts all fouryears of the undergraduate curriculum. The new engineering design course shares a one creditintegrated learning block (ILB

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Edward Gehringer

Session 1461 Building an Ethics in Computing Website Using Peer Review Edward F. Gehringer North Carolina State University efg@ncsu.eduAbstractAn Ethics in Computing Website covering almost 100 topics has been developed using peer-reviewed student contributions. Students in the author’s one-credit Ethics in Computing courseselect a topic to research from a list provided by the instructor, or propose a topic of their ownchoosing. Their contributions are then reviewed, and ultimately graded, by three other studentstaking the course

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Chetan Sankar; P.K. Raju

Session 3225 Importance of Ethical and Business Issues in Making Engineering Design Decisions: Teaching through Case Studies Chetan S. Sankar and P.K. Raju, Auburn University, AL 36849 ABSTRACT This paper discusses the development of a multi-media case study that documentsthe events and decisions leading to the January 27th , 1986 teleconference where thedecision on launching the STS 51-L, Challenger Space Shuttle, was made. Thedifference between this case study and others is that it focuses on the processes used, thefive design options that were presented to the NASA management during 1977

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Rosalyn Berne

Session # 1661 Reaching and Teaching through "The Matrix"; Robosapiens, Transhumanism, and the Formidable in Engineering Ethics Rosalyn W. Berne University of VirginiaAbstractMuch of what is taught in engineering ethics is a matter of practical decision-making andprofessional responsibility—the avoidance of harm and the doing of good in industrialand technical settings. But what about the questions of metaethics; those issues aboutwhich there is deep concern, but also great difficulty in formulating a system of ethicswhich can be applied

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Maria Kreppel; Beverly Swaile

Session 15470 Building Critical Thinking, Teamwork, and Communication Skills Through Professional Ethics in Engineering and Chemical Technology Beverly H. Swaile, Maria C. Kreppel University of CincinnatiAbstractAn interdepartmental faculty team has developed an upper-division general education coursedesigned specifically to introduce ethics into technical education using a case-study approach.The course is designed to place students in a team problem-solving environment forcing them tosift through and critically analyze information related to the ethical topics studied during

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Vincent Drnevich

Session 2570 A Case Study of Using the Web to Teach Civil Engineering Ethics, Professionalism and History Vincent P. Drnevich Purdue UniversityAbstractThis paper shares the experience of the author in developing and using the World Wide Web as ateaching-learning aid in a three-credit hour, required junior level course in civil engineering thatcovers the topics of engineering economics, ethics, professionalism, case studies, and civilengineering history. The course is taught in one large section with 70 to 100 students. Theauthor has taught

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Francis Di Bella

Session 2525 EXPLORING PERSONAL, HYPER-ACTIONS IN ENGINEERING ETHICS- Having your Cake and Being Able to Eat It To! Francis A. Di Bella, PE (617-373-5240, fdibella@coe.neu.edu) Assistant Professor, Northeastern University School of Engineering TechnologyAbstractThe engineering profession has been able to maintain its reputation for high professionalethics behavior. The infrequent newspaper article that does reveal a shortcoming inprofessional engineering ethics remains news worthy simply because they are rare in theprofessional world. Under

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jeanne Garland; Christine Helfers; Ronald Roedel; Sarah Duerden

session 2661@ Division 61 Liberal Education Integration of First-Year English with Introduction to Engineering Design with an Emphasis on Questions of Ethics Jeanne Garland, Sarah Duerden, Christine Helfers, & Ronald Roedel Department of English/Department of Electrical Engineering Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287AbstractFundamental to engineering education, and mandated by ABET is that students engage withquestions of ethics. Too often, however, this does not occur until late in the student’s career

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Marion Hagler; John Chandler; A. Dean Fontenot

literarydepictions of engineering practice, students develop insight into such issues as culturalperspectives regarding engineering, ethical considerations affecting engineers, women inengineering, engineering politics, and various other issues that first-year students rarelyhave an opportunity to consider. In addition, students have the option of taking a first-year composition course, Essentials of College Rhetoric, that is especially designed tocomplement the content of the first-year engineering course, in which they examine andwrite about ethical, political, historical, and technical issues that shape the role ofengineering in our culture and specifically focuses on engineers as writers in theworkplace. The writing course was developed in collaboration

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Rachel Murdell; Piper James; Gary Kinzel; Blaine Lilly; Anthony Luscher

of the ways discussed in Section II. The notes for the two slides are given in Table 3. Fig. 3: Two slides from module on reverse engineeringV. EthicsEngineering ethics is typically covered at various points throughout an engineering curriculum;however, because it is often a central issue in design, ethics should be emphasized in a capstonedesign project. The intent in this module is not to give a complete coverage of all the topicsassociated with engineering ethics but to give a review of some of the issues involved. The moduleuses information from a variety of sources, but the principal source of material is the NationalSociety of Professional Engineers' (NSPE) web page2,3

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Ted Aanstoos; Steven Nichols

professional responsibility • Develop an appreciation of ancillary workplace tasks (health and safety, regulatory and code compliance, and hazardous material responsibility) as crucial engineering functions and duties.The course is organized by topic. Topics are introduced in Lecture, and specific Workshopactivities are prepared that illustrate the topic under consideration. Major topics coveredinclude: • Intellectual Property • Engineering Codes of Ethics • Regulatory Compliance and Environmental Law • Engineering History and the evolution of Professional Societies • Academic and Professional Honesty • Design Codes and Standards

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Karen Davis; Jr., James Caffery; Jr., Fred Beyette

Page 6.57.2 Copyright  2001, American Society for Engineering Educationupperclassmen and leaders of engineering organizations. Representatives from EngineeringTribunal (an engineering college service organization), Tau Beta Pi (engineering honorarysociety), Eta Kappa Nu (ECE honorary society), two engineering fraternities (one of which is co-ed), Bearcast (internet radio broadcast club), the National Society of Black Engineers, the Societyof Women Engineers, and the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers participated in thediscussions.The lecture portion of the class devotes a week to discussion of engineering ethics, with particularfocus on workplace ethics (since all of our students co-op) and ECE case

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

John Brown; Patricia Click

levels--were paired to work on a project thathighlighted the dynamic nature of professionalism.The project also promoted the development of many of the outcomes put forth in the ABET 2000Engineering Criteria. In particular, the project work fostered students’ growth in a number of theareas listed under Criterion 3, Program Outcomes and Assessment. These include (d) an abilityto function on multi-disciplinary teams; (e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solveengineering problems; (f) an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility; (g) anability to communicate effectively; (h) the broad education necessary to understand the impact ofengineering solutions in a global and society context; (I) a recognition of the need for, and

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Steven Levitt

programs must demonstrate that their graduates have:a) an ability to apply knowledge of mathematics, science, and engineering;b) an ability to design and conduct experiments as well as to analyze and interpret data;c) an ability to design a system, component, or process to meet desired needs;d) an ability to function on multidisciplinary teams;e) an ability to identify, formulate, and solve engineering problems;f) an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility;g) an ability to communicate effectively; Page 6.278.1 Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

William Callen; Steven Usselman

with rapid changes intechnology, they must also broaden their focus, cultivate entirely new skills, and consider unfamiliar territory suchas economics, policy, and ethics. In this paper, we suggest an unlikely avenue of potential relief: history. Morespecifically, we report our experiences over the past half dozen years with team-teaching a course entitled“Electrical Engineering in American Life.” An outgrowth of earlier reforms intended to enhance retention ofengineeringstudents, this course has evolved in ways we believe make it an ideal instrument for implementing the letter and thespirit of the new criteria in engineering education. The roots of our course go back to January 1993, when engineers and historians at Georgia Tech joined

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Lloyd Feldmann; Robert Hofinger

students who are working can more easily relate to ethical issues, can sense the interpersonalissues involved and can sort out the responsibility lines. Typically, these students enter college fiveto fifteen years later than the traditional students, work full time in industry, and invest five to tenyears earning an A.S. degree. For instance, they pick up well on the career implications of mostethical dilemmas. They bring to the classroom an appreciation for the pressures in the industrialworld and the methods used to cope with them. The younger students, in general, try to follow atypical textbook approach in their course of action, and then come up with a solution, which,although correct in theory, sometimes would not go over well in a real

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Scott Midkiff

effectively and to be effective teachers as well as learners.Proceedings of the 2001 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & ExpositionCopyright © 2001, American Society for Engineering Education• Ability to cope with ethical dilemmas and conduct themselves in an ethical and professional manner.In addition, the program seeks to increase and enhance the involvement of women andunderrepresented minorities in the networking and general information technology areas and toprovide educational benefits to undergraduate and masters students in the participating academicdepartments. Multiple implementation strategies are being applied.• Creating a research program focused on overcoming barriers to achieving a vision of the future

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Joan A. Burtner

Session 2661 Engineering, Technology and Society: Increasing the Dialogue Between Liberal Arts Majors and Engineering Students Joan A. Burtner Mercer UniversityAbstract The EC2000 Criterion 3 a-k outcomes have increased engineering educators’ awarenessof the importance of contemporary and global issues in undergraduate engineering education. Inan effort to increase college students’ understanding of ethical, professional, and contemporaryissues related to engineering, a senior-level discussion-based seminar has been offered at MercerUniversity

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Leo Smith; Hisham Alnajjar; Donald Leone; Mohammad Saleh Keshawarz; Ladimer Nagurney; Devdas Shetty

by (i) Redesign of the Freshman Engineering coursesequence by incorporating Integrative Learning Blocks by involvement of faculty fromengineering, mathematics, physics, humanities and social sciences. (ii) Creation of a newEngineering Design course at Sophomore Year and the development of Integrative Learning witha course on Ethics in the Profession (iii) Redesign of a Junior Year Design course withIntegrated Learning with Civil, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering. (iv) Partnership withindustry in the creation of real-life engineering projects for all Senior Capstone projects.The paper narrates the interdisciplinary focus taken by the project, involving faculty fromengineering, mathematics, humanities, etc. It has promoted new teaching

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jeanne Garland; Christine Helfers; Ronald Roedel; Sarah Duerden

this concept is not just a minor point or just schoolroom “groupwork.” In English, we took the concept of collaboration beyond a writing topic and had studentsuse collaborative writing to develop a team paper for their last assignment, which was a causalanalysis of an engineering failure. In this way, students had to use effective team skills to writeabout the engineering failure (which ironically often was related to a collaboration problem suchas poor communication). Because teaming skills are so crucial for success in the engineeringprofession, this concept is reinforced continuously in English class activities and essay topics.Another concept that is developed in both classes is that of ethics. For one English essayassignment, students are

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Ann Anderson; Richard Wilk

;attending lectures on codes and standards, ethics, intellectual property, and safety/productliability; undergoing project planning/scheduling experiences; and developing an awareness ofdifferent career paths. This is also accomplished through teamwork exercises where studentslearn to work on disciplinary and multi-disciplinary teams.To ensure that students are on a path for life long learning the senior experience needs to leadstudents to realize that they must continue to learn on their own after graduation to remaincurrent in technological world that is rapidly changing. The senior experience should helpstudents develop confidence in their ability to learn on their own. It should stimulate theirintellectual curiosity. These things can be

Collection

2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Enno Koehn

understanding of various subject areas required by ABET has been enhanced bypart-time and summer work experiences. In particular, the findings suggest that bothundergraduate and graduate students believe that three areas have been greatly enhanced withengineering work. They include structural engineering, project management/scheduling andestimating, and team work. In addition, undergraduates also perceive that their understanding ofhealth and safety issues, and ethical considerations has also increased. In contrast, graduatestudents believe that their knowledge of hydraulics/hydrology/water resources, constructabilityand economic factors has been enhanced by work experiences.I. IntroductionThe American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) believes that

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Patricia C. Tempel; Hisham Alnajjar; Beth Richards; Andrea Brick Ader; Ronald Adrezin

Shared activities: group “What’s essay, “Why Should discussion of ethical dilemmas engineering?” My Conscience in engineering. Brief library exploration of Bother Me?”: exercise (getting familiar with different analyze reasons for library’s online catalog). engineering fields. different Shared outcomes: Guest speaker: Cost perspectives in a appropriate professional vs. safety and ethics. conflict (cultural communication (1); critical analysis) and analytical thinking (2

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2001 Annual Conference

Authors

Jack Lesko; Eric Pappas

needto grow in concert with these technological changes in order to adjust to, and have someinfluence on, what may well be a new social order. It seems likely that we are at the threshold ofyet another period of unparalleled growth and change, and our engineering curricula need toprepare students not simply for the technical work they will do, but for the engineering lifestylethey will live. For some time now, engineering educators have recognized the practicalities of teachingpersonal skills that allow young engineers to practice their craft in a complex work environment.Instruction in ethics, 1,2 management skills,3 critical writing skills, 4,5 problem solving,5 andvalues clarification6 have begun to take their legitimate place in