SEEdS:
Incorporating Ethics Activities into Technical Engineering Courses with Michael Loui

Seminar Description

Many engineering faculty members want to integrate ethics instruction into the technical courses that they teach, but they worry about lack of time and lack of expertise. In this presentation, Loui will describe a few practical examples of how ethics activities can be added organically to technical courses, with minimal preparation by the instructor and little change to the curriculum.

This presentation was part of the Fulton Schools of Engineering Education Seminar (SEEdS) series, a monthly virtual speaker series that engages community members in discussions on engineering education. Learn more about SEEdS here.

From the discussion

While the discussion portions of SEEdS are not included in the recordings, here are a few key takeaways:

• Ethics Integration Can Be Seamless and Low-Lift – “Microinsertion” is a practical strategy that allows instructors to embed ethical reflection directly into existing technical content. For example, posing ethical questions alongside problems about refrigerant selection or circuit tolerances helps students learn to identify and consider ethical dimensions as part of everyday engineering decisions.
• Historical Case Studies as Anchors for Ethical Thinking – Real-world engineering failures (e.g., the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse or the Boeing 737 Max crashes) provide compelling context for technical topics. These cases make clear that engineering choices have significant societal impacts, helping students develop a mindset of responsibility and professional judgment.
• Moving Beyond Recognition to Ethical Action- While ABET requires that students be able to recognize ethical issues and make informed judgments, participants in the session raised a deeper question:

💡What would it look like to design learning experiences that support ethical follow-through—not just awareness?

Guest Speakers

Michael C. Loui is Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering and University Distinguished Teacher-Scholar at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He held the Dale and Suzi Gallagher Professorship in Engineering Education at Purdue University from 2014 to 2019. He has conducted research in computational complexity theory, in professional ethics, and in engineering education. He is a Carnegie Scholar, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.

Professor Loui was Editor of the Journal of Engineering Education from 2012 to 2017 and Executive Editor of College Teaching from 2006 to 2012. He was Associate Dean of the Graduate College at Illinois from 1996 to 2000. He directed the Theory of Computing Program at the National Science Foundation from 1990 to 1991. He earned the Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980 and the B.S. at Yale University in 1975.

Missed a session? Access recordings of past SEEdS topics on our YouTube channel or those in the ASU community can explore our SEEdS resource folder.