2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

The purpose of this practice paper is to document the design and delivery of a seminar course on engineering and social justice. Mainstream engineering culture views engineering work as purely technical and independent of the subjectivities of the practitioners and the sociopolitical context in which engineering work is performed. Engineering students are often unaware of how engineering intersects with aspects of social justice due to the way they learn engineering. As a result, they develop an apathy toward social and ethical considerations. To address this issue, the authors of this paper designed a one-credit elective course. This course was offered to students pursuing engineering and engineering technology degrees at the Rochester Institute of Technology. This paper documents in detail the design and delivery of the course along with student and instructor reflections of the experience. Student experiences are captured through the journal they maintain over the course of the semester. Instructor experiences are captured through the self-reflection of the authors and documentation of their perceptions of the successes and challenges in running this course. We feel that the course was well received by students and allowed them an opportunity to critically reflect on the role of engineers and their own education as future professionals.