Engineering Ethics Update
APRIL 1996

| NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ENGINEERING ETHICS |

April 1996 NIEE Newsletter
Table of Contents:

Message from the President
Robert L. Nichols, P.E., NIEE President

While off to a slow restart, I am confident that NIEE is building a solid foundation and will be a meaningful participant in the field of engineering ethics.

The Board of Directors held its first meeting on December 8, 1995. The American Society of Safety Engineers hosted the meeting and we express our appreciation to them. In summary, the Board:

The Mission of NIEE follows as set forth in the Constitution follows:

The Bylaws provide that the officers of NIEE will include a president, president-elect and treasurer. It has been determined to delay electing a treasurer until the matter of affiliating with some other organization is resolved. We will proceed with the election of a president-elect. A nominating committee consisting of Jimmy Smith (chair), Herb Koogle and Vivian Weil has been appointed. The committee welcomes recommendations.

Copies of the Constitution and Bylaws may be obtained by writing me at: 1 South Main, Webb City, Missouri 64870-2300 or by phone - (417)673-7449.

The following societies have joined NIEE as participating members:

NIEE has an open invitation for other societies to join. If NIEE is to be truly successful in accomplishing its mission statement, it is essential that most of the engineering societies participate in our activities.

NIEE is negotiating with the Center For The Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology to revise and update the publication Professional Ethics and Engineering, A Resource Guide. Published in September 1990, it is a valuable publication, but is both out of date and out of print. I have a few reproductions which I will make available upon request as long as the supply lasts.

In conclusion, I want to express my appreciation to the many volunteers who have made valuable contributions of efforts to restart NIEE. I extend a special thanks to Arthur Schwartz of NSPE for his support. Since NIEE has only very limited funds, volunteer time is essential.

Request for Codes of Ethics

NIEE is beginning to build a library of information on engineering ethics. The first effort will be to compile copies of various codes of ethics. These include (1) societies, (2) firms, companies, corporations, etc. and educational institutions. Please send them to Robert L. Nichols, P.E., President, NIEE, 1 South Main, Webb City, MO 64870. NIEE will be pleased to receive any other material which anyone wishes to make available.

Engineering Ethics at Texas A&M University
Karen W. Pilant

An engineering ethics course, offered originally on an experimental basis at Texas A&M University, has become the cornerstone of the University's program in engineering ethics. "Issues of engineering responsibility and obligations to society are more out in the open now," says Michael Rabins, professor of mechanical engineering and program coordinator of engineering ethics at Texas A&M. "Environmental concerns, for example, have brought these issues to the forefront."

In 1989, Rabins teamed up with Texas A&M philosophy professor Charles E. Harris Jr. to develop case study material for relevant undergraduate required engineering courses. They taught an elective course on a trial basis to test some of their material under development. Enrollment increased through word-of-mouth and the course was approved as a cross-listed nontechnical elective in engineering and philosophy in spring 1992.

The professors are co-authors of Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases, a textbook based on the course and published last year.

"You just can't keep students away from this course. They want to discuss these things," says Rabins, who considers engineering ethics a "new engineering subdiscipline."

After more than 30 years of university teaching and research, Rabins says the engineering ethics involvement has "got me ginned up again." He underscores the potential impact ethical decisions will have on the students' careers.

"Today's graduating engineers will be facing ethical dilemmas in the workplace at some point," Rabins says. "Although no mathematical formulae are available for analysis and resolution of ethical dilemmas, students can be sensitized to the issues they will have to face. They can be given intellectual tools to use in thinking through those issues in their practice of engineering.

"Our principal goal is educational, to convey to our students the responsibility of professionals for the consequences of their actions," he adds.

The importance of teaching ethical behavior was reinforced by Daniel Koenig in a speech to Texas A&M students last October. Koenig, who is president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, said that "by taking the ethics course given here at Texas A&M and similar ones given in other engineering schools, the incident level of moral dilemmas is reduced."

Reflecting a national focus on engineering ethics, all engineering schools now must incorporate engineering ethics in the curriculum to fulfill requirements by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology. ABET is responsible for the accreditation of all engineering and engineering technology programs in the United States.

At Texas A&M, two endowments are further supporting the university's efforts to weave ethics into engineering education.

In November 1994, the university's Dwight Look College of Engineering received $500,000 from Sue and Harry E. Bovay Jr. to support ongoing teaching of ethics and professionalism to engineering students. Bovay, a longtime professional engineer from Houston and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, also donated $500,000 to Cornell University's College of Engineering for the same purpose and to foster cooperation between Texas A&M and Cornell on the subject.

"I want the profession to give back to the next generation of engineers the true essence of the high standards on which we engineers must conduct our profession," Bovay said when presenting the gift.

In March 1995, Chevron Corp. established an endowment of $250,000 for an engineering ethics program at Texas A&M. R.E. Galvin, president of Chevron U.S.A., a Houston-based subsidiary of Chevron Corp., announced the gift. The funds allow for long-term planning for lectures, seminars, forums and other events to promote engineering ethics.

The Bovay endowment already has made possible several activities in the study and teaching of engineering ethics at the university.

Last August, Rabins and Harris directed a five-day workshop at Texas A&M for engineering faculty on developing numerical problems related to existing case studies in engineering ethics and professionalism. Thirty faculty members from around the country attended the workshop, which was funded jointly by the National Science Foundation and the Bovay endowment.

In addition, eight Texas A&M undergraduate engineering students attended as Bovay Fellows, Rabins said. They worked with faculty participants to formulate numerical problems related to ethical cases on topics that included risk and safety in design, environmental impact, honesty in research and testing, and conflicts of interest, among others.

Eighty cases that were drafted at the workshop now are being edited for use in various required engineering courses and for dissemination on the World Wide Web.

"Our objective is to make it easy for professors to introduce ethics into their required undergraduate engineering courses," he explains. "They'll be able to select case modules that fit into the course syllabus and use them for assignments, quizzes and lectures."

This summer, Rabins and Harris will teach engineering ethics at Texas A&M's Santa Chiara Study Abroad Center in the Tuscan city of Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy. A Bovay Scholarship fund, specially designed for this program, will provide ten students with individual $500 scholarships.

Another event scheduled under the Bovay endowment is the Fall 1996 Ethics Bowl, modeled on television's College Bowl. Four-person teams from student engineering societies on campus will compete for cash prizes. Industry representatives will judge, Rabins says.

Professional engineers as well can benefit from a new course offered through the Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX). "Managing Ethics in the Engineering Workplace" is scheduled for May 20-22 in College Station. Rabins and Harris will teach the course.

For more details, call the TEEX Office of Conferencing and Continuing Education at 800/447-9470 or 409/862-4615.

For more information on engineering ethics, contact Michael Rabins at 409/845-2615 or fax 409/862-2420. Email: m1r6609@acs.tamu.edu

Karen W. Pilant is an editor in the Communications Division of the Texas Engineering Experiment Station.

Murdough Center for Engineering Professionalism;
College of Engineering
Texas Tech University

The Murdough Center for Engineering Professionalism was established in 1986 by the Board of Regents of Texas Tech University. The principal goals of the center are to promote professionalism and ethics among engineering students, faculty and practitioners and to become a center for resources to assist in the study, education, encouragement, research, and promotion of professionalism and ethics in engineering nationally and internationally.

During the past six years, the center has been very active in conducting workshops, seminars and presentations in the area of engineering ethics. Major programs have been presented which involved faculty at Texas Tech, engineers from several industries, and faculty from major universities; including the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, University of California at Irvine, Western Michigan University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chapman University and MIT.

Significant funding has come from the Texas State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers' "Professional Development Program" which has made possible over 50 ethics workshops involving over 1,000 engineers in Texas, and over 200 engineering faculty members. During the first few months of 1996, the center conducted workshops for Texas Department of Transportation engineers, engineering firms and the University of Kansas engineering faculty.

International involvement started in 1992, when the Murdough Center hosted the first Engineering Roundtable involving about 30 engineers from 10 states and 25 engineers from Mexico. This effort continued and later became known as the NAFTA Forum on Engineering Practice, a group officially recognized by the U.S. Trade Department and the respective governments of Canada and Mexico. With the assistance of the National Science Foundation, the center's work on "Conduct and Ethics in Engineering Practice Related to the North American Free Trade Agreement" is in the final report stage.

Recently, the center participated with Renssealaer Polytechnic and Illinois Institute of Technology in a project sponsored by NSF and led by the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES) and later by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). This project concluded in November 1995, and involved a team of Russian philosophers visiting the three universities to learn how ethics is being presented to engineering students in the United States.

National activities have included projects for the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), and the National Institute for Engineering Ethics (NIEE).

The center director, Jimmy H. Smith, P.E., has served on the NIEE Board of Governors for five years and currently holds the office of Immediate Past President of the Institute. He also serves on the Board of Ethical Review for NSPE and on the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET. Other Center staff includes project manager and coordinator, Ms. Trish Barrington, and senior associates, Dr. W.P. Vann, P.E., and Mr. Dave Dorchester, P.E.

Ethics and Political Contributions
Jimmy H. Smith, Ph.D., P.E. and Dave Dorchester, P.E.

Reprinted from the "TexethicS" Newsletter, Spring Issue, 1996.

Large political contributions to local political candidates made by engineers who later accept contracts from the elected officials they supported poses an ethical question. There are some engineers who say they feel they must contribute in order to be "eligible" for consideration to receive local government contracts. We hear the refrain from within the profession that "engineers are pressured into making contributions," and "It's a matter of survival."

In this matter, we are confonted with a clash between ethical principles of a profession which is also faced with the pressures of the business environment. We believe in the right of individual engineers to make campaign contributions to those running for office, and believe in the right of professional societies such as TSPE, through its political action committee, to make contributions to individual political campaigns for the purpose of promoting better government in our state. However, it is naive to believe that very large political contributions made by individual engineers are "only in the interest of promoting better government," especially when the engineer or his/her firm later accepts contracts from the elected official supported.

The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) Code of Ethics Section II.5.b states: "Engineers shall not offer, give, solicit or receive, either directly or indirectly, any political contribution in an amount intended to influence the award of a contract by public authority, or which may be reasonably construed by the public of having the effect or intent to influence the award of a contract..." The NSPE Board of Ethical Review (BER) has considered this matter many times since its first case in 1962. In BER Case 88-2, the BER reconfirmed that:
"fundamental ethical principles stated in unequivocal terms cannot be bent or broken for economic expediency or gain."

The writers believe that professional engineers who make major political contributions and subsequently accept work from the politicians they generously supported are presenting an image of the profession to the public that is not in keeping with the "professional conduct and ethics" aspects of being a licensed engineer in Texas.

Jimmy Smith, P.E. is Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Murdough Center for Engineering Professionalism at Texas Tech University. He is a member of the NSPE Board of Ethical Review, a member of the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, and is Immediate Past President of both the Texas Society of Professional Engineers and the National Institute for Engineering Ethics.

Dave Dorchester, P.E. is a retired Electrical Engineer from Texas Utilities Electric. He is a current member and former chairman of the Texas State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers. Dave is a Past President of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers and has chaired several national committees for NSPE and the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying.

The "Golden Rule" Approach to Ethical Corporate Decisions
Joe Paul Jones, Principal Freese and Nichols, Inc.

Through my work with NSPE, I have enjoyed the opportunity to participate in several interesting and intensive discussions on ethics.

One such discussion was with top executives from 25 of the nation's largest consulting engineering firms. Another was with corporate-level managers of engineering who employ several hundred thousand engineers.

These leaders of our profession had several things in common. First, they all expressed a sincere desire for their companies and employees to be ethical. Second, there was no unanimous agreement of where the line could be drawn between actions that were ethically acceptable and those that were not.

Surely Freese and Nichols, which dates back to 1894, would not be in business today if ethics had not been a cornerstone of our practice. Clients, the public, other consultants and our fellow employees have always been able to rely on honest, fair and ethical treatment.

However, sometimes an "ethical solution," is not always obvious. Try though we may, the correct answer, and what a client wants and expects, is not always readily apparent. Let's look at some guides to use.

First, it's clear that we must abide by all laws, rules and regulations. We must also become familiar with these rules as they specifically relate to particular clients. For example, Federal government clients, such as the FAA and Corps of Engineers, have absolute rules against accepting any favors. This rule is strictly interpreted, and to violate it would put a client in a difficult position, sometimes even resulting in an engineering firm's loss of a contract.

That which is commonly considered a courtesy -- such as picking up a lunch for a small group of your co-workers and one government employee -- can be a dangerous violation of federal policy. It's up to us to read the rules and understand them.

A second guideline, which may not be as obvious, is that we do not accept anything of value from a supplier or contractor who could benefit by a favorable decision or ruling from us.

Where does courtesy end, and unethical or ill-advised action begin?

For a honest answer to this question, you should ask, "Would they do this if I weren't in a position to potentially cause them a financial gain or loss?"

A truthful answer should make your decision easier. Certainly, we feel that none of our staff can be influenced by one lunch, but such things can become repetitious and increasingly dangerous over time. Over the long-term, it's easier and much less embarrassing to avoid these situations altogether and to let this policy be known at the beginning of any contract or any supplier-designer relationship.

Why is this ethically important? Simply by assuring that our client has the benefit of our very best unbiased decision-making on any matter.

Here are come common examples of difficult ethical situations you may encounter:

If we gain knowledge from one client, should we share it with another client?

When should credit or attribution be given to another designer or firm?

Should an engineer seal plans designed by others? What if the plans are checked in detail? What if you supervise and trust the designer?

Should you report what you think is unsafe work by another designer? By a competitor? By a client?

Is it ethical to request time off for advanced education and funding by your employer and then quit to go to work for a competitor?

Is it right to communicate intellectual property (i.e. software) gained from one client of employer to another?

Should you supplement your income by moonlighting for a competitor?

How far should you go in trying to convince a client that the design they direct is not the best solution? What if you suspect that your client's design may even be hazardous in come way?

Under what circumstances should you consider becoming a "whistle blower" either on your client or your employer? How many times should you ask, "Am I really sure?" before facing a final decision.

Some of these questions are more easily answered than others. Throughout more than 100 years of business, Freese and Nichols has placed strong priority on ethical decision making. We have learned from our peers and mentors, and those with more experience who have faced similar situations. At each level of the company, from manager to president, we strive to help clients reach the fairest and most ethical decisions.

A simple, but powerful ethical rule is to apply the Golden Rule - Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Put yourself in the place of the client, public, competition or another fellow employee, and answer the questions from their viewpoint.

Another approach is to assume that your action or decision appears on the front page of the newspaper... Would you look bad?

In conclusion, as with many of your firms, it is of paramount desire to Freese and Nichols to be a leader in ethics. All of our decision must reinforce this goal.

Sequel to Gilbane Gold in Process

The video Gilbane Gold has been widely praised over the years. Used as an instructional tool by universities and industries, the video has also been used at NSPE chapter meeting for ethics workshops. While there continues to be sales of Gilbane Gold, there is a demand for a sequel. NIEE is beginning the process of seeking co-sponsors and financial support for the next video. Suggestions are also being sought for a theme. Comments and suggestions should be sent to NIEE.

NIEE Joins with Others Seeking Funding for Ethics Workshops in Russia

NIEE has joined with the American Society for Engineering Education and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in submitting a proposal to the National Science Foundation. The proposal is to conduct workshops on engineering ethics in Russia. These workshops will bring a better understanding of the ethical benefits of the two countries and will facilitate working relationships. This will be NIEE's first effort to implement that part of its mission statement - "Provide a forum for participation in international ethics issues and activities."

NSPE Conducts Ethics Contest Among Chapters

NSPE chapters are participating in their second ethics contest, which is based on the popular Engineering Times column entitled "You Be The Judge." The chapters were invited to discuss an ethics case and submit their opinion based on the NSPE Code of Ethics. The case to be analyzed, which is printed below, was taken from a case considered by the Board of Ethical Review.

Contest Case

The Facts:

Engineer A is a P.E. in the electrical engineering field, and is employed by a state government agency as a computer systems engineer with some management responsibilities. Although educated and trained to perform customary engineering services and licensed as a professional engineer, Engineer A's work experiences have never involved technical and design issues involved in the field of environmental services. Later, as part of a restructuring of the agency, his direct supervisor, Engineer B, recommends that Engineer A accept a position that is offered to him in another state governmental agency responsible for environmental services.

The position requires a P.E. and involves engineering analysis and design responsibilities and Engineer A would be working as part of a team of engineers. Engineer A refuses to accept the position, citing state board regulations requiring him only to perform work in his area of competence and claiming that he cannot accept the position because he lacks the competence to perform the work. Thereafter, Engineer A is terminated.

One year later, during an administrative hearing involving reinstatement to his former position and back pay, Engineer B testifies that Engineer A was qualified to accept the position offered in the Department of Environmental Services.

Questions:

  1. Was it ethical for Engineer A to decline to accept the position with the Department of Environmental Services?
  2. Was it ethical for Engineer B to testify that Engineer A was qualified to accept the position offered to Engineer A in the Department of Environmental Services?
  3. The contest received good participation and created considerable interest among many chapters. The Board of Ethical Review is currently evaluating the submittals, and the winner will be announced at the NSPE Annual Meeting in July.

A similar contest program can be conducted in any organization, university, firm or corporation. For additional information concerning the contest, contact Arthur Schwartz at NSPE
(EMAILl: aschwartz@nspe.org).

Membership Renewal Time

If you have not renewed your membership in NIEE for 1996, we encourage you to do so. A membership form is included on Page 8. Please select either an individual or firm/corporate/institutional membership and indicate whether you are a new or renewal member. NIEE needs broad-based support, and encourages you to join or renew today.

Send in Your Letters

NIEE welcomes your "Letters to the Editor," and will print letters in future issues as space allows. Letters may be submitted to NIEE, 1 South Main, Webb City, MO 64870.

[BackUP/bottom_include.htm]