Science and Engineering Ethics
Science and Engineering Ethics (2004) 10, 369-381
Science and Engineering Ethics, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2004 369
Keywords: engineering ethics, curriculum, honor code, professionalism ABSTRACT: Ethical decision-making is essential to professionalism in engineering. For that reason, ethics is a required topic in an ABET approved engineering curriculum and it must be a foundational strand that runs throughout the entire curriculum. In this paper the curriculum approach that is under development at the Padnos School of Engineering (PSE) at Grand Valley State University will be described. The design of this program draws heavily from the successful approach used at the service academies – in particular West Point and the United States Naval Academy. As is the case for the service academies, all students are introduced to the “Honor Concept” (which includes an Honor Code) as freshmen. As an element of professionalism the PSE program requires 1500 hours of co-op experience which is normally divided into three semesters of full-time work alternated with academic semesters during the last two years of the program. This offers the faculty an opportunity to teach ethics as a natural aspect of professionalism through the academic requirements for co-op. In addition to required elements throughout the program, the students are offered opportunities to participate in service projects which highlight responsible citizenship. These elements and other parts of the approach will be described.
“Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
King Solomon1
* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the “Ethics and Social Responsibility in Engineering and Technology” meeting, New Orleans, 2003. Address for correspondence: Shirley T. Fleischmann, PhD, Professor, Grand Valley State University, Seymour and Esther Padnos School of Engineering, 301 West Fulton Street, Grand Rapids, MI 49504, USA; email: [email protected]. 1353-3452 © 2004 Opragen Publications, POB 54, Guildford GU1 2YF, UK. http://www.opragen.co.uk
Essential Ethics – Embedding Ethics into an Engineering Curriculum*
Shirley T. Fleischmann Seymour and Esther Padnos School of Engineering, Grand Valley State University, MI, USA
S. T. Fleischmann
370 Science and Engineering Ethics, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2004
Introduction
What are the essential elements of an engineering education? Certainly a high level of technical competency in key basic areas is important. Mastery of scientific, mathematical, and technical ideas and issues is important. Practical, hands-on skills are important. Communications skills are important. Mastery of modern tools – electronic and other – is important. All of these things are important; a student cannot be a practicing engineer without them, yet they are not sufficient because an engineer is something that you become, not just something that you do. The way to becoming an engineer involves educating and training habits of the mind; it involves assuming a high level of responsibility for design – for the products and processes that flow from our imaginations and into reality. Ethical decision-making lies at the heart of engineering design. It touches on technical competency, but reaches out to include a deeper understanding of how design affects individuals, society, and the natural environment. In a real way engineering ethics informs and guides all of engineering practice. Ethics is essential in that it forms a foundation for the practice of engineering. It is the way of engineering. Following the wisdom in the words of Solomon (quoted at the beginning of this paper), we start at the beginning of a student’s academic career and weave the threads tightly into all that they learn from us. This paper will describe the major influences to, and the features of, the approach that is under development in the Padnos School of Engineering at Grand Valley State University.
Ethics – An Engineering Curriculum Challenge
Engineering educators are called upon to prepare young engineers to meet the challenge of socially responsible and ethically sound practice of our profession. There is a challenge here. Most engineering educators would agree that ethics is important but as noted by S. Pfatteicher, “The current engineering ethics “dilemma,” in short, has been to find a way to provide meaningful ethics instruction to all engineering students without overburdening the faculty, without increasing graduation requirements, and without removing essential technical material from the curriculum.”2 (p.137) This dilemma is heightened with the new accreditation criteria in engineering, the ABET 2000 (a-k) Criteria which explicitly requires programs to demonstrate that students understand their professional and ethical responsibilities (criterion f) and that they have the broad education necessary to understand engineering design in a societal and global context (criterion h). Requiring at least one course in which ethics is a primary topic is a start. However, in a survey of 242 institutions offering engineering degrees, Karl Stephan3 found that fewer than 27% had such a requirement. Grand Valley was (and still is) one of those schools but a single course is not enough to change the culture of a school – especially when the course is taught by faculty outside of the engineering discipline.
Our choice has been to add to the required course by weaving an “ethics theme” throughout the curriculum. This is more difficult and it involves a commitment by a majority of the faculty to carefully build an intellectual foundation for ethical practice.
Embedding Ethics into an Engineering Curriculum
Science and Engineering Ethics, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2004 371
Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits are basic to character, and character establishes destiny. We are in the character-building business. We must begin with teaching how to think and to develop certain careful and truthful habits of the mind. Embedding ethics into an engineering curriculum is ultimately about instilling truth at the most fundamental levels of engineering practice. As a profession we have been entrusted with special and very powerful knowledge. That knowledge comes with a responsibility to use it wisely and for the common good. Making ethical practice of engineering second nature for our students will happen most effectively if it becomes a part of the fabric and culture of the engineering department.
How Is Engineering Ethics Different?
