This proposed project on engineering ethics education is a collaborative effort among educators from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Moscow Aviation Institute, three engineering ethics academic programs in the U.S., and three U.S. professional engineering and science associations. It is a planning effort that will enable three Russian educators to visit the U.S. in the fall of 1994 to meet with American engineers, educators, and others in order to design a project that will (1) develop and evaluate options for teaching engineering ethics in Russia, and (2) organize and conduct workshops in Russia for teachers of engineering ethics. Currently Russian engineers have greater autonomy and new opportunities for exercising descretion in their work; but they are confronting what are for them new issues of professional ethics and social responsibillity. They remain uncertain about what their role and responsibilities should be in the context of on-going political, economic and social reforms. This planning phase will enable American and Russian participants to begin to design an educational program in engineering ethics appropriate for Russia. It will allow the engineering ethics community in the U.S. to lend credibility to those efforts and draw from that experience insights that could bring improved understanding of how social, political and cultural contexts shape engineering practice.
