2026 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

In our institutional change project, we are emphasizing societal effect, ethical responsibility, and professional practice, in addition to technical proficiency to promote character-driven engineering education that humanizes engineering learning. Ethics and moral thinking are often taught as separate modules in traditional curricula, which makes it challenging for students to understand sociocultural and systems implications of real-world problems [1], [2]. Principled Innovation (PI) establishes a comprehensive framework for developing moral, civic, intellectual, and performance character in teaching, learning, and research contexts. Moral character focuses on integrity and acting with ethical responsibility. Civic character emphasizes contributing to community well-being, understanding culture and context, and engaging multiple and diverse perspectives. Intellectual character is reflected in curiosity, critical thinking, and openness to new ideas. Performance character highlights collaboration, courage, creativity, and resilience. This work-in-progress qualitative case study looks at the early stages of PI integration at a polytechnic university and explores its potential role as a catalyst for institutional positioning and decision-making. More specifically, this study aims to determine how PI principles were integrated into curricula, co-curricular activities, and operational decision-making, the effects of these activities on various stakeholders, and strategies for growing PI practices across the school. We explore how faculty, staff, and students engage with PI initiatives, such as the PI Research and Teaching Fellowships, PI Book Club, Lunch and Learn series and student awareness campaigns, which are designed to encourage character-driven educational approaches. Ten faculty, twenty staff, and seven students were recruited through PI initiatives. Data collection included multiple approaches, such as interviews, questionnaires, reflection cards, and engagement activity observations. Numerous data sets were triangulated to enhance the validity, and emerging themes were identified through thematic analysis using both deductive PI codes and inductive coding approaches. Preliminary findings reveal that faculty are incorporating Principled Innovation (PI) into their instruction through intentional course design, reflective practices, and the use of PI tools, while also acknowledging pre-existing principles in their curriculum. While students demonstrate improvement in ethical reasoning, empathy, critical thinking, and autonomy, with PI serving as an approach to professional preparedness and resilience in responding to potential failure. Furthermore, according to the faculty, PI integration promotes real-world and societal effect by including students in applicable, human-centered, and socially responsible projects that value cooperation, inclusion, and long-term civic responsibility. Lastly, administrative practices to integrate the voice of faculty, staff, and industry reveal a priori interests in PI-aligned characters as central to the school’s future. These outcomes indicate the ability to transform instructional practices, improve educational experiences, and effectively influence institutional culture. Overall, this study contributes to the expanding body of research on character-driven engineering education and provides practical recommendations for merging civic, moral, performance, and intellectual awareness into large-scale engineering organizations.