To exercise leadership, science and engineering educators need to provide their students with the tools to identify and respond appropriately to professional problems with ethical dimensions. This project will develop an innovative campus-wide program integrating ethics into the professional curriculum, a program professional societies could adapt to their continuing education programs. The project has four steps: 1) developing and offering workshops for IIT faculty in how to teach professional ethics in how to teach professional ethics in their technical courses; 1) providing institutional support (a continuing seminar, case file, videos, and so on) for faculty introducing professional ethics into their technical courses; 3) redesigning existing capstone courses to include a design program requiring ethical difficult cooperation among students in two or more professional programs; and 4) disseminating results through a day-and-a-half working conference for staff and volunteers in continuing education programs of professional societies and a weeklong version of the workshop for faculty of other universities, as well as through presentations at professional meetings and publications in appropriate journals. This proposal focuses on an important area in Ethics and Values Studies. The investigators are very well qualified; the plan is thoughtful and feasible; university support is extremely good. Results are likely to improve the teaching of engineering ethics on this campus and in undergraduate curricula nationwide. Based on the merits of the proposal and the generally positive review, support is highly recommended.
