2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The Virtues of Engineering Practice: An Investigation of Professional Codes of Ethics in Engineering

Presented at Virtues in Engineering Ethics Education

In this paper, we analyze three prominent professional engineering codes of ethics (NSPE, IEEE, and SHPE) to identify the virtues of engineering practice. This preliminary investigation by four raters (three engineers and one philosopher) revealed six prominent virtues - Responsibility, Integrity, Honesty, Trustworthiness, Teamwork, and Fairness. As an opportunity for future work, we believe there are missing virtues (e.g., Bravery, Leadership, Curiosity, Creativity, Perseverance, Hope, Love of Learning) that should be made more visible to the practice of engineering and thus engineering code of ethics. Identifying the virtues of engineering practice can inform engineering ethics education and broaden the ethics perspective by introducing virtues and virtue ethics to the education of future engineers. A virtue ethics lens offers a richer understanding and more humanistic perspective to ethical dilemmas facing engineers every day. Implications for engineering education and engineering practice are discussed.

Authors

Elizabeth M Boatman
Dr. Kyle Luthy Wake Forest University [biography]

Dr. Kyle Luthy is an Assistant Professor and founding
faculty member in the Department of Engineering at Wake
Forest University. Kyle has taught across the engineering
curriculum and placed intentional focus on the virtue of
humility. Kyle holds a Ph.D. and a MS in Computer Engineering
from North Carolina State University, as well as BS degrees in
Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Computer
Science from Louisiana State University. As an educator, he
brings professional experience as an engineer and project
management from industry and government settings.
Dr. Christian B. Miller Wake Forest University [biography]

A.C. Reid Professor of Philosophy
Dr. Olga Pierrakos Wake Forest University [biography]

Dr. Olga Pierrakos is a rotating STEM Education Program Director in the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation (a second stint). Olga is also the Founding Chair (2017-2022) and a Professor of Wake Forest Engineering. With a unique vision to Educate the Whole Engineer and a commitment to Human Flourishing, Olga led Wake Forest Engineering to be ranked as one of the top (14th) "Best Undergraduate Engineering Programs" by US News Report (2023). With this unique vision, Olga has also served as the principal investigator since 2019 on a multi-year Kern Family Foundation KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network) award titled "Educating the Whole Engineer" to integrate important competencies such as virtues, character, entrepreneurial mindset, and leadership across the Wake Forest Engineering curriculum. She has led Wake Forest Engineering with a focus on inclusive innovation and excellence, curricular and pedagogical innovation, and creative partnerships across the humanities, social sciences, industry, entrepreneurs, etc. in order to rethink and reimagine engineering education. All this has led to Wake Forest Engineering achieving unprecedented student diversity (42% women, 25% racial and ethnic minorities) and faculty diversity (50% women, 25% racial and ethnic diversity). Olga is an engineering education researcher, biomedical and mechanical engineer, and national leader in transforming undergraduate engineering education. She has served as founding faculty of two brand new engineering programs (the first at James Madison University) and served on several national roles across ASEE, ABET, AAAS, NSF, KEEN, etc.

Download paper (1.88 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

For those interested in:

Academia-Industry Connections