Advances in Engineering Education - An Academic-Industry Partnership for Preparing the Next Generation of Ethical Engineers for Professional Practice

Oct 15, 2026

Engineering educators face social and ABET expectations to integrate engineering ethics into existing curricula, yet effective methods for preparing students for everyday ethical workplace situations remain unclear. This article reports initial efforts using an academic-industry partnership: establishing a College-level Ethics Advisory Council spanning 13 Purdue engineering departments, gathering faculty and practicing engineers to set shared goals and expectations. It details workshop outputs and lessons, including limitations and considerations for institutions adopting a similar strategy.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Literature Review

| | Ad | vances in Engineering Edu | cation | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | SUMMER 2020 An Academic – Industry Partnership for Preparing the Next Generation of Ethical Engineers for Professional Practice DAYOUNG KIM BRENT K. JESIEK CARLA B. ZOLTOWSKI MICHAEL C. LOUI AND ANDREW O. BRIGHTMAN Purdue University West Lafayette, IN ABSTRACT In light of both social and ABET expectations, engineering educators need to consider how to effectively infuse engineering ethics education into current engineering curricula. This article describes our initial efforts in that realm. We considered how to improve ethics education in engineering through establishing an academic-industry partnership, which facilitated conversation between engineering faculty members and practicing engineers in industry. We formed a Collegelevel Ethics Advisory Council with representation from industry partners across all 13 engineering departments in Purdue’s College of Engineering. As the first official activity, we held an Ethics Advisory Council Workshop to define common goals and share mutual expectations for long-term relationships. This article shares some basic information about the academic-industry partnership and outputs from the Ethics Advisory Council Workshop. We also discuss lessons we learned from the initial work on the partnership, including limitations and other considerations important for potential adopters of such a strategy at their institution. This article can provide insights to engineering educators who are interested in adopting the academic-industry partnership approach to facilitate direct conversations between academia and industry, especially for better engineering ethics education. Key words: ethics, industry involvement, engineering curriculum SUMMER 2020 1 ADVANCES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION An Academic – Industry Partnership for Preparing the Next Generation of Ethical Engineers for Professional Practice INTRODUCTION In light of continual, high profile ethical failures, such as the Volkswagen emissions scandal (Valentini & Kruckeberg 2018), we cannot emphasize enough the importance of engineering ethics education throughout college and into workplaces to shape a foundation for further ethical development among engineers. For this reason, accreditation standards have emphasized ethical and professional responsibilities as a required student outcome (ABET, 1997) . However, we do not clearly know how to effectively infuse ethics into engineering curricula to prepare students for the everyday ethical situations that engineers encounter in their workplaces. Moreover, pressures in the workplace frequently challenge the engineer to maintain high standards of practice. According to the National Business Ethics Survey (Ethics Resource Center, 2011), five of the top eight factors that pressure people to compromise ethical standards are related to corporate culture and values. The top factor (reported in 70% of cases) was the pressure to meet unrealistic business goals. Such pressure is faced by engineers not only in industry by engineers in industry. It has long been recognized that engineers in other workplaces such as government also face pressures that affect ethical conduct (Kornhauser, 1962) . How then do we identify the kinds of everyday workplace challenges faced by engineers and prepare future engineers to effectively and ethically respond in such situations? We think that improving ethics education requires more direct conversations between industry and academia. As an initial step, we created an academic-industry partnership in the form of an Ethics Advisory Council for the College of Engineering at our university. With funding support from the Dean of Engineering, we invited industry partners to discuss how we might prioritize attention to ethics and compliance in engineering curricula, and to develop engineering ethics education that is better alig

FAQs

Why does the article emphasize engineering ethics education throughout college and into workplaces?

It links frequent, high-profile ethical failures to the need for a foundation for engineers’ further ethical development, and references accreditation expectations that require ethical and professional responsibilities.

How did the authors structure the academic-industry partnership?

They formed a College-level Ethics Advisory Council with representation from industry partners across all 13 engineering departments at Purdue’s College of Engineering.

What was the first official activity of the Ethics Advisory Council?

An Ethics Advisory Council Workshop held to define common goals and share mutual expectations for long-term relationships.

Oct 15, 2026

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