Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Donna Riley, Smith College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2008-851: ETHICS IN CONTEXT, ETHICS IN ACTION: GETTING BEYONDTHE INDIVIDUAL PROFESSIONAL IN ENGINEERING ETHICS EDUCATIONDonna Riley, Smith College Page 13.570.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Ethics in Context, Ethics in Action: Getting beyond the individual professional in engineering ethics educationAbstractA number of authors have challenged engineering ethics educators to incorporate elements ofwhat may be called “macroethics,” “social ethics” or considerations related to the field of scienceand technology studies (STS) in engineering ethics curricula. To respond to this call effectivelyrequires reform of both content and

Conference Session

Philosophy of Engineering Education: Epistemology and Ethics

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Gayle Ermer, Calvin College

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2008-2051: UNDERSTANDING TECHNOLOGICAL FAILURE: ETHICS, EVIL,AND FINITUDE IN ENGINEERING DISASTERSGayle Ermer, Calvin College Page 13.1312.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Understanding Technological Failure: Ethics, Evil, and Finitude in Engineering DisastersAbstractIt is important to know why technological systems sometimes fail catastrophically. Notonly does culpability need to be established justly after a disaster, but the success of newtechnology depends on accurately predicting how technology and the individuals andsocieties with which it interacts will behave. It is nearly always the case that disastersoccur due to

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Kristyn Masters, University of Wisconsin - Madison; Sarah Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2008-2240: LOWERING THE BARRIERS TO ACHIEVE ETHICS ACROSSTHE ENGINEERING CURRICULUMKristyn Masters, University of Wisconsin - MadisonSarah Pfatteicher, University of Wisconsin - Madison Page 13.858.1© American Society for Engineering Education, 2008 Lowering the Barriers to Achieve Ethics across the Engineering CurriculumAbstractDespite the importance of ethics training to accreditation agencies, future employers, instructors,and students themselves, many students graduate from engineering with only a cursoryunderstanding of ethical issues and little experience in making ethical decisions related to theirdiscipline/profession

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Byron Newberry, Baylor University; William Lawson, Texas Tech University; Kathy Austin, Texas Tech University; Greta Gorsuch, Texas Tech University; Thomas Darwin, University of Texas at Austin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

AC 2008-2589: DESIGN OF WEB-BASED PROFESSIONAL ETHICS MODULESTO ALLEVIATE ACCULTURATION BARRIERS FOR INTERNATIONALGRADUATE STUDENTS IN ENGINEERINGByron Newberry, Baylor University Byron Newberry, P.E., Ph.D. Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Baylor UniversityWilliam Lawson, Texas Tech University William D. Lawson, P.E., Ph.D. Senior Research Associate, National Institute for Engineering Ethics & Assistant Professor Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering Texas Tech UniversityKathy Austin, Texas Tech University Katherine A. Austin, Ph.D. Assistant Vice President, Information Technology Division, Texas Tech UniversityGreta Gorsuch, Texas Tech University Greta J

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Arthur Sacks, Colorado School of Mines

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

morals and ethics ofothers (Noah Cross), and the damage done to people and place when greed and corruption winout.On a deeper level, the film is a tale about human frailty, the weakness that pervades all the film’scharacters, their innate inability to foresee the future confounded by their inability to see withclarity the world of the present, its truths and complexities as they are. This is especially true ofprivate eye, Jake Gittes, whose blindness ironically prevents him from seeing the world beforehim, though it is his job to see the truth of things, sort them out and solve/resolve complexhuman conflicts and problems. His eye is too private, not open to what his work andresponsibilities require him to see. This failure of sight is true, as

Conference Session

Philosophy of Engineering Education: Epistemology and Ethics

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Heywood, Trinity College-Dublin

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

engineering on the basis of the direct use of activities that correspond to the fiveclassical branches of philosophy – aesthetics, epistemology, ethics, logic and metaphysics. Hedemonstrates the relevance of philosophies such as empiricism, idealism, existentialism,logical positivism, and rationalism. It is unfortunate that he omitted realism from his list sincethe contrasting positions of constructivism and realism have been the subject of a major debatein education especially in the sciences and school education21 and more generally in respect ofethics.22Education and philosophyMany schools of teacher education require their students to take a course in philosophy as itmay be applied to education. There are different ways of approaching such

Conference Session

Philosophy of Engineering Education: Epistemology and Ethics

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Mark Valenzuela, University of Evansville; James Allen, University of Evansville; Brian Swenty, University of Evansville

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

education program consists of about 35credit hours, or 29% of a 120-hour curriculum. This percentage is significantly different fromthe figures cited by Stouffer and Russell.From the Ratcliff survey, 61.3% of the schools report content requirements in literature, 60.7%in History, 60.6% in Philosophy and Ethics, 46.9% in Foreign Languages. Further, in keepingwith the understanding that cognitive areas (and related outcomes) are as important as contentareas, Ratcliff’s survey reveals that 91% of the schools report goals in the area of critical readingand writing, 72% in critical thinking, 63% in speaking and listening, 67% in cultural diversityand 55% in global studies. While the Ratcliff study provides a picture of goals in generaleducation, it is

Conference Session

Beyond Individual Ethics: Engineering in Context

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Dean Nieusma, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

.” Journal of Engineering Education. Vol. 94, No. 1, Pp. 103-120.4 Van der Poel, Ibo and Peter-Paul Verbeek, Guest Editors. 2006. Special Issue of Science, Technology, and Human Values on “Ethics and Engineering Design.” Vol. 31, No. 3 (May).5 E.g., Grasso, Domenico, Kara M. Callahan, and Sandra Doucett. 2004. “Defining Engineering Thought.” International Journal of Engineering Education. Vol. 20, No. 3, Pp. 412-415.6 Winner, Langdon. 1980. “Do Artefacts Have Politics?” Daedalus. Vol. 109, Pp. 121-36.7 Winner, Langdon. 1995. “Political Ergonomics.” In Richard Buchanan and Victor Margolin, Editors. Discovering Design. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pp. 146-70.8 Ibid, p. 151.9 Ibid, p. 165.10 Ibid, p

Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Paul Ross, University of Wisconsin - Madison

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

guidelines for student portfolios have evolved over the last decade as moreprofessional attention has been given to the nature and purpose of a portfolio as part of studentwork in engineering. Key motivators that have improved professionalism in portfolios includeincreased attention to issues of accreditation and ethics and to the requirement of life-longlearning as a professional obligation. These elements of “portfolio thinking” usually reside wellwithin the bounds of engineering education. 1, 10, 12However, as the world becomes more complicated, knowledge and experience beyond thetechnical must be exhibited by an engineering professional. Increased awareness of theimportance of fields outside engineering – those academic subjects usually grouped

Conference Session

Blurring the Boundary between Content Knowledge and Professional Knowledge

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Verna Fitzsimmons, Kent State University - Kent; Stephane Booth, Kent State University - Kent

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

, reflectivepractice, valuing diversity, ethical behavior, and civic responsibility. How can this beeffectively accomplished? How do we model for the students everything that is worthy inprofessional education as well as general education? One way is for faculty to see theirmission as one that converges. Application of this convergence needs to be modeled forthe students throughout their program of study in order for them to be able to makeconnections among professional education outcomes, general education outcomes andlife experience.Body of the PaperProfessional education (for example: engineering, architecture, nursing) is seeing ademand to increase the content and depth of knowledge as technology and the variousfields evolves. Thereby the number of

Conference Session

Learning to Communicate with Engineers and Non-Engineers

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Leslie Potter, Iowa State University; John Jackman, Iowa State University; K. Jo Min, Iowa State University; Matthew Search, Iowa State University

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

outcomes can be divided into “engineering” skillsand “professional” skills, with professional skills including not only communication, butteamwork, ethics, professionalism, engineering solutions in a global and societal context,lifelong learning, and a knowledge of contemporary issues.2 ABET prioritized these professionalskills as relatively equal in importance to those of technical competence in its Criteria forAccrediting Programs, and in doing so, made it possible for engineering programs to not onlyrecognize the importance of professional skills, but to teach them to their students. ABET’sdecision to formalize this priority reflects what industry has been emphasizing in its recruitingand advising for many years. Companies such as IBM and

Conference Session

Venturing Out: Service Learning, Study Abroad, and Criterion H

Collection

2008 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

John Duffy, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Carol Barry, University Massachusetts Lowell; Linda Barrington, University of Massachusetts-Lowell; David Kazmer, University of Massachusetts-Lowell; William Moeller, University of Massachusetts Lowell; Cheryl West, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Tagged Divisions

Liberal Education

the Town of Dunstable’s wells. These projects were facilitated by a member of Dunstable’s Board of Health (which oversees water quality in the wells).• Students in various engineering statistics courses have performed statistical analyses of a survey data for the SLICE project and have analyzed crime data for the Lowell Police Department as well as health data from medical clinics in which the students have installed raiods, lights, vaccine fridges, and town water supplies.• In Engineering Ethics, which is required for engineering students, students have examined a number of issues related to Peruvian villages associated with the Peru Project. These issues included whether to provide solar-powered television systems, opportunities