Conference Session

Faculty Views of Ethics

Collection

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Andrew Katz, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; David B. Knight, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

. To date, abundant research exists on the mechanics of teaching ethics, butthere remains a paucity of work investigating what informs faculty decisions to teach ethics (or,conversely, not to teach it) and how they discern the manifold inputs affecting those decisions. Over the past decade, research on engineering ethics in undergraduate programs hasconsidered myriad perspectives. One branch of work has approached it from the studentperspective, ranging from an investigation on student perspectives toward ethics and professionalidentity6 to a more tangential approach looking at students’ views toward social responsibility7.8.A separate branch has also looked at this topic from recent graduates’ perspectives andencounters with ethical

Conference Session

Awareness, Expectations, and Recognition of Ethics

Collection

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Isabel Hilliger, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Andrés Strello, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Francisca Castro, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; Mar Pérez-Sanagustín, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

problems concerning the understanding of professional ethics (e.g., lack of ethical codeawareness) and students’ conduct (e.g., free-riding in teamwork activities). The ethical reasoning scale showed differences in the understanding of different subgroups.Moreover, the prevailing student type at the research site is the one that experienced moredifficulties to recognize how ethically wrong a potential issue was. By prevailing students, weare referring to a male youngster who graduated from a privately-fee paid school (see Table 8).Thus, future work might imply exploring deeply the dominant culture of the research site inorder to understand how personal characteristics shape ethical decision-making. Towards continuous improvement, most

Conference Session

Engineering Social and Human Ethical Impacts

Collection

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mark L. Bourgeois, University of Notre Dame

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

tends to focus almostexclusively on distinctive professional responsibilities – that is to say, ethical issues that arecommonly presented by the immediate practice of the work typical of each. For undergraduates,this is professional ethics in an industrial or consulting context.1 For graduate students, whosetraining is preparation for a career in research, this is typically research ethics, implicitly in anacademic context.2 Thus, both construe the responsibilities of the engineer relatively narrowly.In particular, the concerns of each taper dramatically as the borders of the immediate work siteare crossed. While some focus is of course necessary and appropriate, the present narrowness hasarguably become unhealthily myopic, particularly

Conference Session

Professional and Regulatory Issues in Ethics

Collection

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Graeme W Troxell, Colorado State University; Wade O. Troxell, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1374

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

, and many people they care about, are members of the public that frequently comeinto some sort of contact with engineered things. There are a number of professional benefits enjoyed by engineers and ultimatelymade possible by broad adoption of a code of ethics. An example Davis offers, via ananalysis of Robert Lund’s decision to “think like a manager” rather than an engineer ishow engineers qua engineers are, due to their code, more empowered to reject anemployer’s request. Lund, then the vice-president of engineering at Morton Thiokol—the company responsible for the O-rings whose failure led to the Challenger disaster in1986—found himself in the unfortunate position of being pulled away from hisprofessional obligations by other

Conference Session

Engaging Ethics, Internationally

Collection

2017 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Qin Zhu, Colorado School of Mines; Brent K Jesiek, Purdue University, West Lafayette (College of Engineering)

Tagged Topics

Diversity

Tagged Divisions

Engineering Ethics

approach still leaves two questions unresolved.First, it is unclear whether it is realistic to expect that the global codes of ethics be used to guideengineering practice in different countries, beginning with their introduction to students informal coursework and later as guidelines for conduct in the workplace. Second, given thatAmerican societies encourage their members to apply their codes of ethics universally, theirforeign colleagues might know very little (if anything) about these codes. It might therefore beineffective or unfair for two sides of a collaboration to have an unbalanced understanding of thecodes of ethics that are supposed to guide their collaborative engineering practice. And third,there is the question of how to avoid