2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Instilling Cultural, Ethical, Social, and Environmental Responsibility in Engineering Education and Practice – The National Academies’ CESER Advisory Committee (Work in Progress, Examinations of Ethical Engineering/Environmental & Sustainability Concerns)

Presented at Professional Development and Engineering Ethics Education

This Work-in-Progress will address the intent and initial work of the Cultural, Ethical, Social and Environmental Responsibility in Engineering (CESER) program, an initiative that the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) began in late 2023. The program—which was motivated by a desire to instill a culture of ethical and environmental responsibility in engineering—builds on NAE’s long-standing commitment to the socially-responsible practice of engineering exemplified by two predecessor programs, the Center for Engineering Ethics and Society, and the Online Ethics Center. CESER is animated by two goals: to seamlessly integrate cultural, ethical, social, and environmental responsibility considerations into the practice of engineering, and to raise awareness of how engineering design and the engineering mindset can responsibly contribute to addressing society’s greatest challenges. The program aims to expand the understanding of how cultural, ethical, and social circumstances, and the environment affect and are affected by the practice of engineering and draw attention to these issues through engagement with engineers, educators, industry leaders, professional societies, governmental entities, and the general public. The program’s advisory committee is composed of national thought leaders in these topics from academia, the public sector, and industry. It is, as of late 2023, developing its mission and vision statements and formulating its initial projects, which are anticipated to include webcasts, workshops, and collaborations with the National Academies’ Committee on Human Rights and with sister academies of engineering. The paper will expand on the program’s overall ambitions and objectives, give an update on its current activities, and identify opportunities for collaboration and contribution to its work; the conference presentation will additionally seek attendees’ perspectives on areas for future focus and opportunities to raise the visibility of these crucial issues in engineering education and practice.

Authors

Dr. David A. Butler http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3423-0720 National Academy of Engineering [biography]

David A. Butler, PhD, is the J. Herbert Hollomon Scholar of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) of the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, and is the Founding Director of NAE’s Cultural, Ethical, Social, and Environmental Responsibility in Engineering program. Before joining the National Academies, Dr. Butler was an analyst for the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, a research associate in the Department of Environmental Health of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, conducted research at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and practiced as a product safety engineer at Xerox Corporation. He has directed numerous National Academies studies on engineering and environmental policy topics. Dr. Butler earned his BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering with a concentration in biomedical engineering from the University of Rochester and his PhD in public policy analysis from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a recipient of the National Academies’ Cecil Medal for Research.
Casey Gibson http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4338-3489 National Academy of Engineering [biography]

Casey Gibson, M.S., is an Associate Program Officer at the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) of U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Gibson contributes to multiple NAE and cross-Academies initiatives, focusing primarily on the Cultural, Ethical, Social, and Environmental Responsibility in Engineering program. Gibson completed her M.S. from the Colorado School of Mines as a member of the inaugural cohort in Humanitarian Engineering and Science (HES). In the HES program, Gibson specialized in Environmental Engineering and conducted research under the NSF-funded “Responsible Mining, Resilient Communities” project in Colombia. She was named Outstanding Graduate Student in HES. Gibson earned her B.S. in Biological/Agricultural Engineering and minor in Sustainability from the University of Arkansas, along with a B.A. in Spanish Language. In addition, Gibson served as a Fulbright-García Robles Scholar in Mexico.

Download paper (1.84 MB)

Are you a researcher? Would you like to cite this paper? Visit the ASEE document repository at peer.asee.org for more tools and easy citations.

» Download paper

« View session