New Values for Twenty-First Century Engineering

Abstract

In 1947, the American Engineers’ Council for Professional Development (ECPD), the predecessor of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), defined engineering as follows: “The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under specific operating conditions; all as respects an intended function, economics of operation and safety to life and property” (ECPD 1947a, b). This definition of engineering corresponded to a particular time, a period subject to its own particular needs, and a social context that called for a specific profile of professional engineers who were capable of using their expertise and technology skills to deal with the objectives that were considered a priority and appropriate at that stage of development. As history has shown, this was by no means an inappropriate approach within the context of the midtwentieth century. The prestige enjoyed by engineering in general, and civil engineering in particular, is undoubtedly the result of the extensive and successful track record of projects and construction works, mainly in the field of infrastructure, which have contributed decisively to achieving quality-of-life standards that were unthinkable not so long ago. However, the evolution of society, the rapid pace of scientific advance, the emergence of new values and social behavior patterns, and the spectacular development of communications all call for a profound reexamination of certain aspects of engineering both in professional and educational fields. To adapt approaches that were valid and effective in the past to current changing times, these approaches now require substantial revising to incorporate attitudes and skills that, in some respects, go beyond the strict remit of engineering to what we might call the “comprehensive training” of the engineer. This new social and technological context in which civil engineers will operate in the 21st century calls for deeply reflecting on the skills and behaviors that should be encouraged, taking an honest position on the role to be assumed by the civil engineer in this new emerging society, and firmly committing to bringing the profession closer to the problems that citizens perceive as most pressing for the future of the world. In the process of shifting the engineering profession toward a professional who is more involved with problems affecting and troubling the society for whose benefit he or she ultimately operates, the new vision of engineering provided by ABET’s definition at the dawn of the 21st century is very graphic: “The profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind” (ABET 1994). The outstanding message to be drawn from this is the identification of the definitive rationale of engineering as nothing less than “the benefit of mankind.” As Professor Andres Mejia (2009) points out, this reference to engineering’s impact on society is a statement of its ultimate purpose. If we hope to overcome, and even escape, the mercenary idea of engineering that sometimes may have been unwittingly transmitted to society, we shall need to inculcate a spirit of critical thinking into the engineering student—critical thinking as understood by writers such as Norris and Ennis (1993) in the sense of “reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.” In this sense, the key point of enabling engineers to behave in an ethical manner based on knowledge and rationality, proves to be how they approach questions such as which social systems are affected by projects; the people involved, and their interests or purposes; and the way in which scientific knowledge is to be used to legitimize those goals or purposes.