Science and Engineering Ethics (2003) 9, 543-568
Science and Engineering Ethics, Volume 9, Issue 4, 2003 543
Keywords: ABET 2000, engineering ethics, computer ethics, faculty training, Ethics Across the
Curriculum, moral development
ABSTRACT: This paper describes a one-day workshop format for introducing ethics
into the engineering curriculum prepared at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez
(UPRM). It responds to the ethics criteria newly integrated into the accreditation
process by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). It also
employs an ethics across the curriculum (EAC) approach; engineers identify the
ethical issues, write cases that dramatize these issues, and then develop exercises
making use of these cases that are specially tailored to mainstream engineering
classes.
The different activities and strategies employed in this workshop are set forth.
Specific references are made to the cases and exercises developed as a result of these
workshops. The paper ends by summarizing the different assessments made of the
workshop by addressing the following questions: how did it contribute to the overall
ABET effort at UPRM; could other universities benefit from a similar activity; and how
did the participants evaluate the workshop?
1. INTRODUCTION
The new accreditation standards developed by the Accreditation Board of Engineering
and Technology for the year 2000 (ABET 2000) present engineering programs with the
challenge of incorporating ethics and professional responsibility into an already
crowded curriculum. Many engineering programs offer a freestanding course in
engineering ethics as an elective. Few, however, require such a course.
1
Hence, to
supplement the elective, freestanding course in engineering ethics, we advocate the
An Effective Strategy for Integrating Ethics
Across the Curriculum in Engineering: An
ABET 2000 Challenge
José A. Cruz and William J. Frey
University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez
Address for correspondence: Dr. José A. Cruz and Dr. William J. Frey, Center for Ethics in the
Professions, Humanities Department, University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Box 9264, Mayagüez,
Puerto Rico 00681-9264; emails: jacruz@uprm.edu, wfrey@uprm.edu.
Paper received, 5 September 2001; revised, 25 July 2002; accepted, 10 September 2003.
1353-3452 © 2003 Opragen Publications, POB 54, Guildford GU1 2YF, UK. http://www.opragen.co.uk