HUMAN AND SOCIAL VALUES IN ENGINEERING

Frederick H. Reardon

SacramentoState College

Sacramento, California

Presented at the Panel Discussion, “The Young Engineering Teacher’s View of Engineering Education,” at the 1969 Winter Annual Meeting, American Society of Mechanical Engineers

It is becoming 1ncreasingly clear that engineering must involve human and social values as well as technical and economic ones. Many engineers protest that this is the way it has always been. However,it is not hard to cite many examples of dehumanizing technology created by engineers,

  • urban areas jammed with autos and obscured by smog
  • increasing numbers and types of increasingly lethal weapons
  • more and. more disposable consumer goods, leading to the destruction of natural resources and threatening to bury us in our own garbage

Although engineers try to disclaim responsibility for such developments, we know that engineers have been involved. Further, engineers hold at least a part of the solution to such problems.

The problem is that the quality of human and social life has been thought to be of peripheral interest, at best, in engineering education. Therefore, it is not stretching things too far to say that engineering educators have been responsible for "thing-oriented" engineers and must now take the lead in developing "people-oriented" engineers. In our curricula we have only grudgingly accepted courses in "the humanities", and have made it quite clear that such courses are "non-engineering" courses and, as such, are to be given a lower priority by the students. This attitude has been picked op by the students, and ultimately by the "non-engineering" faculties, so that the courses In the humanities truly become of inferiorquality.

Fortunately, many engineering students, perhaps even the majority, seem eager to integrate the concern for human values into the engineering curriculum. In a new course at SacramentoState, called "Technology is the Social environment°, just Introduced this term, there are 20 engineering students and 20 from other parts of the College. There is general agreement that it is turning out to be a very stimulating and exciting course.

We must develop new teaching methods, so that a concern for the whole range of human ecology,including man-nature and man-man, is made a significant part of an engineer's equipment. I do not pretend to have all of the solutions to this problem, but two possibilities might be:

  • more flexible scheduling, with more use of design seminars and research laboratories, involving such areas as air, water, and soil pollution, noise, transportation systems, peacekeeping methods, etc.
  • closer contacts and exchanges with faculties of other departments, making use of team-teaching.

I suppose that we all agree that teaching is not simply the transfer of information to a passive student, even though it seems that some people in government and even some students think of it this way. We propagate such a philosophy by organizing our curricula around lectures and by chopping up the study of engineering into discrete courses ("spoon-size" pieces). Today we need integration instead of separation,

Teaching consists more truly of guiding, challenging, stimulating (even nagging), and inspiring the student to confront the problems of today's world with the powerful tools of engineering methodology. The teacher must be an example of the responsible engineer, always concerned, always learning, always growing. Good teaching requires a combination of in-class and out-of-class contacts with students and involvement, with the students, in community problems.

To accomplish the tasks facing engineering education in this last third of the 20th century, there must be honest and open relationships among all faculty members. Such relationships must be built on mutual acceptance. Each person is a unique individual, without whom the world would be poorer. Each person has the right to disagree. Each person has the responsibility to speak out on important issues to which he has given intelligent study, and has the responsibility also of listening when others speak.

In summary, the development of social concern as an integral part of engineering: is not just desirable, it is absolutely necessary today. Teaching methods need to be updated if we are to educate the kind ofengineers needed today. Inspiration, guidance, challenge, and example are among the most significant aspects of teaching. Finally, open, honest, and accepting relations with coworkers are indispensable to the educational process.