Calvin College
Engineering Department Ethics Across the Curriculum Plan (EAC)
Approved by the department in concept (8/30/04)

Recommendations:

  1. That the department adopt the requirements specified below as constituting an Ethics Across the Curriculum (EAC) program.

  2. That we establish a faculty member as Ethics Coordinator to supervise the program (reporting to the curriculum sub-committee).

Background:

One of the outcomes developed from the goals and objectives for the engineering program is:

(f) Calvin's engineering program will demonstrate that its graduates have an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility from a Christian, holistic perspective.

Discussions in the department as part of our assessment procedures indicated that although individual faculty contribute to achieving this outcome in many different ways, we currently have no formal way to identify where exposure to these issues occurs or to guarantee that all students become aware of the importance of this topic.

The most effective place to teach ethics is not in a single standalone course, or even in a standalone lecture within a course. Engineering students may perceive material presented in this way as having little relevance to their technical work. Rather, professional ethics and Christian values should be inserted into their technical coursework in such a way that it is perceived as an integral part of their professional training. This program will formally integrate teaching of ethics into our curriculum, guaranteeing that every student will get adequate exposure to the topic, and that the material will be incorporated into the program continuously in the same way that writing is taught across the engineering curriculum.

Program Structure:

The EAC program will require student exposure to ethics in the following courses and extra-curricular activities.

    1. ENGR 101. This course will be used to provide exposure to ethical decision-making in the context of an introduction to engineering design and the engineering profession. Foundational knowledge will be presented that can be extended in later courses. The content of this course will include (3-4 lectures):
      • Introduction to Design Norms
      • Introduction to a professional Code of Engineering Ethics
      • Introduction to a method for addressing ethical problems
      • At least two case studies or guest presentations requiring class discussion and/or graded student responses
      • Integration of ethical/Christian perspective issues into group design projects

    2. Two sophomore courses: ENGR 202 and ENGR 204. At the sophomore level students should be required to focus on ethical issues briefly in each of these courses. These two courses must each contain at least two exercises (micro-insertions) requiring students to give some consideration to ethical issues with graded written responses. The Ethics Coordinator will provide assistance in planning these. Faculty course assessment forms for these two courses will clearly indicate the need to include ethics topics each time the courses are taught.

    3. Designated junior course (one in each concentration). To maintain continuity students should be required to practice ethical decision-making at the junior level. Each designated course must contain at least two exercises requiring students to give some consideration to ethical issues with in-class discussion or readings with graded written responses.

    4. ENGR 340. This course will serve as the capstone experience for engineering students not only technically but in their development of a Christian concept of ethical responsibility. The content of this course will include:
      • The involvement of a guest speaker with experience in the areas of business and engineering ethics (typically 2 sessions)
      • The analysis and presentation of a case study involving ethical considerations by each student design team
      • Enough lecture and/or reading material to allow students to adequately address their case studies

    5. Seminar. At least one engineering seminar per year should directly address the topic of ethics and/or engineering from a Christian perspective.

All the courses that incorporate ethics would be required to include at least one question on the engineering department student evaluation form assessing the activities. Of course, ethics instruction is not limited to the above designated courses. All faculty are strongly encouraged to include issues of professionalism, ethics, and Christian perspective wherever possible. The EAC program is not intended to limit these issues to particular courses. Rather, the formal program ensures that there will be sufficient consideration of these issues for every student in a way that can be documented and assessed.

Rationale:

To obtain outcome (f) stated above, it is necessary to work toward the following goals (stated in order of increasing complexity):

Although the last of these goals may be difficult to assess, the first three are amenable to the same sort of measurement techniques we use for assessing technical knowledge, for example written homework responses or short answer test questions. We want to teach students about the special circumstances and standards that apply to engineering work, which they would ordinarily not have considered in their home or church. This approach to engineering ethics means that professionalism and ethics are intimately connected. Although students may not respond with enthusiasm to problems that are presented as purely moral/ethical issues (which they may perceive as philosophical and not directly related to technical considerations) they are always interested in learning about the way things work in industry. We also want to stress that the need to do the right thing professionally includes doing the right thing as students (for example, avoiding academic dishonesty). And of course, engineering and the way we behave as members of that profession are extensions of our Christian faith. So teaching ethics must require aspects of professionalism and Christian perspective (which fits in extremely well with the way we have chosen to state this outcome).

Implementation Timetable:

Ethics Coordinator:

The department ethics coordinator will be responsible for: