Superbly prepared

• Competence: Superbly prepared for the task at hand – Competence includes knowledge and skill in using tools to accomplish the task at hand as well as the wisdom to select the tools best suited. Competence has a moral dimension: as the field of engineering changes engineers are required to stay current in order to fulfill the promise to practice only where qualified.

• Compassion: To see problems with the heart as well as the head and to act. This includes empathy, the ability to place yourself in someone else’s place and to walk with them as you attempt to understand the problem that you will attempt to solve.

• Courage: Means conquering fear and accomplishing what must be done. When do engineers need courage? They need it whenever they face the unknown – be it technical, social, emotional, or any realm that touches design. Design or effective problem-solving requires courage.

Integrity and Competence are qualities of the intellect or the head, while Compassion and Courage are qualities of the heart. The designs that flow from the

hand of an engineer have their origin in the realm of the head and the heart.

EXCELLENCE in engineering requires mastery of the head, the heart, and the hand.

Iron Ring Ceremony Because of the co-op, engineering students do not finish their academic program until the end of the summer. We looked for some kind of special ceremony to mark this passage from undergraduate study to professional endeavor and we found it in the Iron

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Ring Ceremony. Our students participate in university commencement in the spring but their senior project work and course work is not yet finished, so commencement is not as meaningful for them as it is for students who are actually finished. The ceremony involves the administration of an oath (similar to the original oath written by author Rudyard Kipling) and placing a stainless steel (in the U.S.) ring on the pinky of one’s working hand. The oath reinforces ideas of professional and ethical responsibility in the practice of engineering and the ring is a visible reminder of that oath and of the honor of our profession. Once again, students sign something – a copy of the oath, and their last contact with the undergraduate experience is a reminder of the ethics that forms the foundation of engineering practice. Information about The Order of the Engineer and the Iron Ring Ceremony that is part of it can be found at the following web-site: http://www.order-of-the-engineer.org/index.html.

FIGURE 4: Padnos School of Engineering seal

Volunteer Community Service Projects The elements of our program discussed so far are all required in the curriculum. In addition, we have fostered the development of a number of community service projects involving engineering and administered through the student sections of the professional engineering societies. In her article entitled Teaching vs. Preaching: EC 2000 and the Engineering Ethics Dilemma,2 (p.139) S. Pfatteicher urges educators to clearly distinguish between hopes and expectations when considering student outcomes for teaching in all areas, but in ethics in particular. It is our expectation that students will understand ethics and social responsibility, and that they will be able to think clearly and critically. It is our hope that they will move beyond understanding to some level of action and possibly even advocacy. To encourage students to take this step we have invited them to join us in a number of community service projects.

In each case we present the project as an opportunity to exercise responsible citizenship and we attempt to link it to our professional responsibility to “enhance human welfare” – as required by the professional codes of ethics. For example,

S. T. Fleischmann

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