Each fall semester from 2009 to 2020, the Bovay Program for the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering at Cornell hosted the Sidney and Ann Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Workshop on Business Ethics in Engineering.

The workshop brings together Master’s level engineering students from across different engineering disciplines, graduate students in the humanities, professors from the Engineering College, the Business School, and the Arts and Sciences College, as well as representatives from industry to discuss ethics at the intersection of engineering and management.

2020 Workshop: Considering Climate Change in Business and Engineering Strategies

The 2020 workshop was cancelled due to COVID-19 lockdowns.

2019 Workshop: The Autonomous Driving Rollout: Information, Data, Ethics

Friday Sept. 20, the 11th Annual Sidney and Ann Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Workshop on Engineering Management Ethics for M. Eng., MBA, and Law students will be held from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the ILR Conference Center.

The workshop is a unique opportunity for Engineering students to interact with Law and MBA students and faculty in and informal, small group setting

This year the workshop will consider ethical issues in the rollout of autonomous driving technology, in particular the role of information and data. As automatic driving becomes more and more a focus of automotive development, regulatory agencies are behind the curve in terms of setting guidelines and accountability rules with regard to the large amounts of data that are generated and stored by the systems. Who owns the information? How is the aggregation of the data – necessary for the engineering development – to be handled? Do the norms and practices of Silicon Valley translate to the automobile industry? All pertinent information about the cases will be given at the workshop – you don’t need to study ahead of time.

Refreshments will be served starting at 4:30 p.m. The workshop formally ends at 7:30 p.m. when dinner is served.

Students from past years report that they have really enjoyed the atmosphere of small group and informal interactions with faculty and students from other colleges. A main goal of the workshop is for students from each college to experience the perspectives and viewpoints of members of the other colleges, as they will inevitably come into contact with them as their careers go forward. We have also found that more and more, employers are interested in applicants who have had some exposure to ethics during their academic careers.

2018 Workshop: The Autonomous Driving Rollout: New Ethics for the Auto Industry?

Friday Sept. 21, the 10th Annual Sidney and Ann Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Workshop on Engineering Management Ethics for M. Eng., MBA, and Law students will be held from 5-8:30 in the ILR Conference Center.

The workshop is a unique opportunity for Engineering students to interact with Law and MBA students and faculty in and informal, small group setting

This year the workshop will consider ethical issues in the rollout of autonomous driving technology and compare them to past auto industry issues. As automatic driving becomes more and more a focus of automotive development, regulatory agencies are behind the curve in terms of setting guidelines and accountability rules, and other drivers are not consulted as driverless cars are ‘beta’ tested on active roads. On the other hand, other safety and environmental laws are well established (VW’s violations of emission laws have led them to pay over $20B (so far) in fines and legal settlements in the past several years and executives have been charged with crimes). In both regulatory realms, engineers have had to enact decisions made by the companies – were they the same kinds of decisions? Would you have ordered/programmed emissions test ‘defeat’ software for VW? Would you have cleared for on road use driverless software for Tesla? Do the norms and practices of Silicon Valley translate to the automobile industry? Have “the punishments fit the crimes” in the cases of driverless car deaths and accidents? All pertinent information about the cases will be given at the workshop – you don’t need to study ahead of time.

Hors d’oeuvres will be served starting at 4:30PM. The workshop formally ends at 7:30PM, and then there is catered dinner until 8:30PM to continue informal conversations.

Students from past years report that they have really enjoyed the atmosphere of small group and informal interactions with faculty and students from other colleges. A main goal of the workshop is for students from each college to experience the perspectives and viewpoints of members of the other colleges, as they will inevitably come into contact with them as their careers go forward. We have also found that more and more, employers are interested in applicants who have had some exposure to ethics during their academic careers.

2017 Workshop: The Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

The workshop is a unique opportunity for M.Eng. students to interact with MBA and Law students and faculty in and informal, small group setting.

This year the workshop will compare the ongoing VW emissions scandal and its ramifications with the rollout of autonomous driving amid the recent Tesla death (and more potential accidents). As automatic driving becomes more and more a focus of automotive development, regulatory agencies are behind the curve in terms of setting guidelines and accountability rules, and other drivers are not consulted as driverless cars are ‘beta’ tested on active roads. On the other hand, environmental laws are well established and have lead VW to pay over $15B dollars (so far) in fines and legal settlements for installing software that allowed the cars to get around environmental regulations. In each case, engineers had to enact decisions made by the companies – were they the same kinds of decisions? Would you have ordered/programmed ‘defeat’ software for VW? Would you have cleared for use driverless software for Tesla? Have ‘the punishments fit the crimes’ in each case? All pertinent information about the cases will be given at the workshop – you don’t need to study ahead of time. The workshop formally end at 7:30, and then there is catered dinner until 8:30 to continue informal conversations.

Students from past years report that they have really enjoyed the atmosphere of small group and informal interactions with faculty and students from other colleges. A main goal of the workshop is for students from each college to experience the perspectives and viewpoints of members of the other colleges, as they will inevitably come into contact with them as their careers go forward. We have also found that more and more, employers are interested in applicants who have had some exposure to ethics during their academic careers.

2016 Workshop: VW vs. Tesla: Considering Ethics in Engineering Management

On Friday September 23, 2016 the 8th Annual Sidney and Ann Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Engineering Management Ethics Workshop for MBA, Law, and M. Eng. Students was held in Cornell’s ILR Conference Room. This year the workshop compared the recent VW emissions scandal with the even more recent death from Tesla’s ‘driver assist’ technology. Moderators for the workshop were Prof. Ron Kline (Director – Bovay Program in Engineering Ethics), Dr. Park Doing (Bovay Program), Prof. Bradley Wendel (Law), Dr. Erica Dawson (Director- Leadership Programs), Dr. Dana Radcliffe (Johnson School of Management), Prof. Toby Ault (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences), Dr. Bob Braudy (Cornell ’65, ’66), and Judi Braudy. The workshop was attended by16 MBA students, 4 Law Students, and 15 Engineering Students.

Dr. Park Doing gave a presentation to open the workshop that compared the two cases. In the VW case, a market for ‘clean diesel’ technology was seen and when the technology couldn’t deliver, VW decided to purposely violate US environmental laws via defeat software in the vehicles. Extra pollution was put into the atmosphere that, statistically speaking, caused 100 extra deaths. The company was found out, a VW employee was charged with a crime (defrauding regulators and consumers) and convicted, with possibly more to come, and the company has paid upwards of $15B in settlements and fines. In the Tesla case, the driver who was killed signed a waiver to use the driverless software, there were no regulations preventing its use on roads, and the accident has not seemed to slow the push for driverless vehicles coming from both industry and municipalities like Pittsburgh, PA. The point was made that Tesla promoted the technology as ‘driver assist’ on one hand by touted and promoted a world of driverless cars on the other, seemingly an encouragement to use the technology thusly.

In the discussions, the students were fascinated by the new world of driverless technology. What are the rules for implementing it? Why don’t other drivers have to also give their consent? Why wouldn’t there be rules for what kinds of sensing technologies are valid? It was agreed that a kind of ‘technological enthusiasm’ coming from Silicon Valley seemed to be at play with both consumers and regulators – that Tesla was being treated as a software company that would naturally release beta versions of the car while the technology is developed. These issues carried the discussions – it was seen that VW simply and straightforwardly broke the law and compromised health, and that both engineers and business management were culpable. But with Tesla, the group (like regulators and consumers) tended to give it some leeway. After all, the technology is touted as a way to save tens o thousands of lives on the roads. While it was agreed that Tesla was getting a pass through its waiver of liability form, the group was still inclined to let Tesla (and other companies) work out the technology on the actual roads. The engineers who worked for Tesla were not seen as unethical as those that worked for VW, even though it was agreed that a scenario where a driverless accident could kill 100 people was within the realm of possibility. This was a point of difference between the students and the moderators!

Discussions for this workshop were quite lively – the emergence of driverless technology as a topic and the new balance between MBA students and Engineering students were seen as primary reasons.

The Cornell Daily Sun reported on the workshop.

2015 Workshop: From the Ford Pinto to the GM Ignition Switch (with the Toyota Prius in between) to the VW Emissions Case: Engineering, Management, and the Auto Industry

On Friday Oct. 2, 2015 the 6th Annual Sidney and Ann Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Engineering Management Ethics Workshop for MBA, Law, and M. Eng. Students was held in Cornell’s ILR Conference Room. This year the workshop compared the recent GM ignition switch scandal with the emerging VW emissions case. Moderators for the workshop were Prof. Ron Kline (Director – Bovay Program in Engineering Ethics), Dr. Park Doing (Bovay Program), Dr. John Callister (MAE, Director of Entrepreneurship Programs), Carol Grumbach (Associate Vice Provost), Dr. Erica Dawson (Director- Leadership Programs), Dr. Bob Braudy (Cornell ’65, ’66), and Judi Braudy. The workshop was attended by 11 MBA students, 5 Law Students, and 12 Engineering Students.

The Workshop opened again with a presentation by Dr. Erica Dawson about ‘Motivated Reasoning’ to set the stage for considering decision making in the cases. It resonated with the group that indeed, rationalizing decisions is commonplace and that people, in general, do not see biases that they bring to decisions that are ostensibly based of on facts. After that, Dr. Park Doing gave a presentation that laid out the details of the GM ignition switch case and what was known at the time of the emerging VW emissions case. In each case, decisions were made where it was clearly known that safety would obviously be compromised.

The workshop then broke into small discussion groups to explore why such decisions were made and whether they were, indeed, the same kinds of decisions. After the small group discussions, the groups convened and each group explained their conclusions to the wider group. Dr. John Callister noted that he had worked in the auto industry and that it had been his job to sign off on changes to parts as designs developed. A main aspect of the GM ignition switch case was that a part was changed, but a new part number was not assigned to the changed part, resulting in confusion and delays in investigations into accidents. Dr. Callister pointed out, as he did the previous year, that such a decision was a ‘cardinal sin’ in automotive design – no amount of motivated reasoning could make it seem right. It was agreed, again, that engineers who took part in this were in stark violation of engineering codes of ethics, regardless of the financial state of the company at the time and the pressure within the company to do so.

The group then discussed the differences between the GM and VW cases. Was VW’s decision to install ‘defeat’ software to get around environmental laws in the US, and the engineers’ complicity within the company, similar in kind to the GM case where safety was compromised? Dr. Callister brought up the automotive industry’s general antagonism toward environmental regulation, and that he could easily see how VW (and other car companies) would see violating environmental laws as a ‘lesser sin’ than compromising safety per se (it was pointed out that the number of deaths due to the extra pollution from the VW diesel cars was statistically seen to be about 100 people). There was lively debate on this point among the students. In general, students did not see a distinction and were surprised that there would be an industry-wide culture that minimized environmental and pollution concerns. It was also noted that VWs defeat software itself was proprietary and therefore not accessible to regulators. This seemed profound to the group – that with the rise of software in automobiles more and more aspects of the technology of cars was not inspectable by regulators.

At this workshop, the increase percentage-wise of MBA students was seen as valuable for discussions, and plans were made to bring in more MBAs for future workshops.

2014 Workshop: From the Ford Pinto to the GM Ignition Switch (with the Toyota Prius in Between): Engineering, Management, and the Recall System

On Friday September 26, 2015 the 6th Annual Sidney and Ann Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Engineering Management Ethics Workshop for MBA, Law, and M. Eng. Students was held in Cornell’s ILR Conference Room. This year the workshop compared the iconic Ford Pinto case to the Toyota unintended acceleration case and the recent GM ignition switch scandal, with an eye toward consideration of the recall system in the auto industry as a whole. Moderators for the workshop were Prof. Ron Kline (Director – Bovay Program in Engineering Ethics), Dr. Park Doing (Bovay Program), Prof. Bradley Wendel (Law), Dr. John Callister (MAE, Director of Entrepreneurship Programs), Carol Grumbach (Associate Vice Provost), Dr. Erica Dawson (Director- Leadership Programs), Dr. Rachel Maines (Visiting Bovay Scholar), Dr. Bob Braudy (Cornell ’65, ’66), and Judi Braudy. The workshop was attended by 9 MBA students, 6 Law Students, and 22 Engineering Students.

The Workshop opened with a presentation by Dr. Erica Dawson about ‘Motivated Reasoning’, the phenomenon whereby people bring underlying goals or positions to ‘rational’ analysis. Dr. Dawson showed how pervasive motivated reasoning is and that none of us are completely above it. She pointed out how motivated reasoning helps explain why more facts about particular issues only serves to further polarize opposing sides – the facts are interpreted by each side accordingly. After that, Dr. Park Doing gave a presentation that laid out the details of the Ford Pinto case and the implementation of the recall system in the 1970s, the Toyota Prius unintended acceleration case, and the recent GM ignition switch case.

The point was made that at the time of the Ford Pinto case, safety regulation was in a nascent stage, and that even the concept that a car itself should be safe, like other products, was just beginning to take hold and greatly accelerated by the Pinto fires and deaths. This aspect that society itself was just coming to safety as an expected part of automobile production, and that there were many other unsafe cars on the road, was seen as being in stark contrast to the Toyota acceleration and GM ignition cases, where societal values of safety and safety regulation had been firmly in place for decades. Considering the Toyota and GM cases, it was noted that while Toyota did not seem to have evidence ahead release that cars would accelerate unintentionally, GM had such evidence and had even changed a part in the ignition system to fix the problem without admitting the first part was bad or assigning the new part a new part number. Dr. John Callister noted that he had worked in the auto industry and that it had been his job to sign off on changes to parts as designs developed. Dr. Callister pointed out that such a decision was a ‘cardinal sin’ in automotive design and that there must have been tremendous pressure in the organization to do such a thing. It was agreed among the groups that at the time of the decision GM was in a very precarious state the company was headed toward bankruptcy and soon to be bailed out by federal intervention, and that this played a major role in general pressure hide this defect. Nevertheless, it was decided that engineers who took part in this were in stark violation of engineering ethics.

It was noted that in all three cases, consumers who were harmed by a defect faced an ‘upstream swim’ to convince the companies and regulators of the problems and that only through legal requirements of disclosure from lawsuits did information become available and regulators act. Even then, the practice of settling out of court under non-disclosure agreements further inhibits the dissemination of information regarding safety. This aspect of the recall system of automobile safety was seen as particularly troubling to the group.

2013 Workshop: Motivated Reasoning: Lessons from the Ford Pinto Case

The 5th annual Braudy Workshop on Ethics in Engineering Management was held Friday Sept. 27 in the ILR Conference Center from 5-8:30 PM. It was attended by 9 MBA students from the Johnson School of Management at Cornell, 8 students from the Cornell Law School, and 23 M. Eng. Students from a wide swath of majors in the Cornell Engineering College. Facilitators for this year’s workshop were Prof. Oskar Liivak of the Cornell Law School, Dr. Dana Radcliffe, Day Family Lecturer in Business Ethics at the Johnson School of Management, Dr. John Callister, Director of the Entrepreneurship Program in the Cornell Engineering College, Carol Grumbach, Associate Dean for First Year Student Experience, John Belina, Cornell Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Park Doing, Bovay Program in Engineering Ethics, Prof. Ron Kline, Director of the Bovay Program in Engineering Ethics, Dr. Bob Braudy, and Judi Braudy.

This year, the keynote speaker was Dr. Erica Dawson, Director of Leadership Programs in the Engineering College, who opened the workshop with a talk entitled “Motivated Reasoning” which gave research perspectives from the field of social psychology on why and how different people and different groups tend to ‘see’ technical facts in different ways. After that, Dr. Park Doing, Lecturer in the Bovay Program of Ethics in Engineering, gave an overview of the Ford Pinto case, supplementing material on the case that was given to the students before the workshop. The workshop then broke into small group discussions to analyze the case pressing the points that the Pinto was under legal compliance the entire time it was in operation and there were many dangerous cars on the road at the time. Does someone in engineering management have an ethical obligation to go beyond simple legal compliance in the management of engineering projects? In the small group discussions, students were encouraged to take the perspectives of the Ford Recall Officer, a Ford Lawyer, a representative of the National Highway Transportation Safety Authority, a Ford Engineer, a family member of a victim of a Ford Pinto rear end collision fire, the CEO of Ford, and a Journalist.

After the small group discussions, the entire workshop reconvened for a large group discussion, drawing on the different areas of expertise in attendance, about current issues where simple legal compliance might, in the future, be questioned as ethical. Issues of consumer information, privacy, patents, and other disasters like the Fukushima Nuclear Plant and the Macondo Well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico were discussed.

The combination of opening talk, change in format focusing on a real case study and its relation to current issues, and the higher ratio of MBA and Law students to M.Eng. Students was seen to have set the stage for and enable lively discussion from these different perspectives involved in Engineering Management decisions.

2012 Workshop: Incident at Morales

The 2012 Sydney and Anne Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker workshop on Ethics in Engineering Management for M. Eng, Law, and Business School students was held on Friday October 12, 2012 from 5:00 – 8:00 in the ILR Conference Center at Cornell. Faculty facilitators at the workshop included Prof. Ron Kline, Director of the Bovay Program in History and Ethics of Engineering, Prof. Zelman Warhaft, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Dr. Dana Radcliffe, Day Family Lecturer in Business Ethics, Johnson School of Management, Carol Grumbach, J.D., Associate Dean, New Student Programs, Dr. Neelam Sethi, Dept. of Philosophy, Dr. Park Doing, Bovay Program in History and Ethics of Engineering, and Dr. Robert and Judi Braudy – the sponsors of the workshop. Dr. Braudy holds a B.S. in Engineering Physics and an M. Eng. in Aerospace Engineering from Cornell and a Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics from Drexel University. He has 30 years experience as and executive, consultant, and researcher in the transportation, heath services, and financial industries. Of the 23 students participating in this year’s workshop, 8 were MBA students from the Johnson School of Management, 2 were Law students, and 13 were M. Eng students. Once again, the students appreciated close collaboration and interaction with the faculty, and responses to the workshop were again quite positive. This year the workshop benefited from the perspective and participation of the business and law students present, and efforts will be made to continue the trajectory of the conference as a joint Business School, Law School, Engineering School forum.

As with previous years, the workshop revolved around analysis and discussion of the fictional case Incident at Morales produced by the American Association for Engineering Education. The workshop began with welcoming remarks by Prof. Ron Kline. Dr. Park Doing then gave a presentation linking the issues in Engineering Management raised in the case to recent cases of software errors that cost Knight Capital over $400M and affected the U.S. stock market and the recent ‘patent wars’ between Samsung and Apple. After that, the case was viewed by the group as a whole, but stopped before the final conclusion. After that, the group was broken into 4 small groups and as a new discussion technique this year each student was assigned a role to argue from the perspective of a particular character in the case. This technique proved fruitful as the students were free to push the various perspectives. After that, the conclusion of the case was viewed by everyone. Then small group discussions were held again and this time the students gave their own views on how decisions in the case should have been handled. After that, the group again convened as a whole to bring forth perspectives from each of the groups. Some of the themes that came forth were the difficulty of ‘institutional momentum’ vs. individual action in decision making, the consequences of going against corporate constraints, the interplay between design and operations, and the nature of intellectual property. The workshop concluded with Dr. Braudy sharing some of his experiences from his career in Engineering Management, and then lively discussions continued into and through dinner catered by the Cornell ILR Conference Center.

2011 Workshop: Incident at Morales

The 2011 Sidney and Ann Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Workshop on Engineering Management Ethics was held on Oct. 21 in McManus Lounge in Hollister Hall. Facilitators for the workshop included Prof. Ron Kline, Director of the Bovay Program in Engineering Ethics at Cornell, Prof. Brad Wendel, Cornell Law School, Dr. Dana Radcliffe, Johnson School of Management, Al Center, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Carol Grumbach, Program on Ethics and Public Life at Cornell, John Belina, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Dr. Park Doing, Bovay Program in Engineering Ethics at Cornell, and also Dr. Bob Braudy (’65, ’66) and Judi Braudy. Students attending the workshop included seniors and M. Eng. Students from Mechanical and Aerospace

Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering Management, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Operations Research and Information Engineering, Materials Science, Biomedical Engineering, and Engineering Physics as well as Ph. D. students from Natural Resources and the Department of Science and Technology Studies and also students from Cornell Law School and the Johnson School of Management.

The workshop began with opening remarks from Prof. Kline and an opening talk by Prof. Brad Wendel of the Law School. Prof. Wendel asserted that ethics in the management of technical projects went beyond strict adherence to liability, an area in which he has worked, in the legal sense and that engineers and managers had a duty to judge for themselves how their professional decisions affected the “health, welfare, and safety” of the public, and act accordingly. This was followed by a viewing of “The Incident at Morales”, a hypothetical case of an industrial accident at a chemical engineering plant, stopped just before the outcome of the case ‘occurred’. After the viewing, the workshop broke into small groups where issues of safety culture, accountability, environmental impact, organizational mission drift, reasonable and unreasonable expectations of engineering by management, the relationship between engineering and operations, and leadership (among other areas) were discussed with respect to the case.

After these small group discussions, the case was played to its conclusion, in which an explosion occurs at the plant and a plant operator dies, and the entire group convened for a discussion mediated by Dr. Park Doing. In addition to Prof. Wendel’s insights from his experiences in the legal arena, the workshop was fortunate to have Al Center from the Chemical Engineering department participate, since he has been involved in the design of many chemical plants and teaches the capstone design course in Chemical Engineering where students design a chemical engineering plant. In the large group discussion, Al pointed out aspects of the relationship between the protagonist, a design engineer, and the company that employed him in the movie that had subtly passed by in previous workshops. With hi experience in such matters, Al pointed out that the language used in the movie pointed to a contractual relationship between the engineer and the company, rather than one of a salaried employee. This led to discussion among the group about the different kinds of accountability involved in each relationship – a new aspect for the workshop.

As in previous years, students enjoyed the opportunity to interact with faculty members in an informal setting where they were all participating in an exercise, and this year the range of expertise brought to bear by the facilitators was the most diverse yet. In fact, the facilitators involved this year all enthusiastically agreed to pursue more longstanding and formal institutional interactions between the Engineering College, the Law School, The Johnson School of Management, and the Arts and Sciences College around the topic of ethics. The Bovay Program is looking into hosting a joint seminar series in this regard for the 2012-2013 academic year and also forming a working group to foster the connections between these different ethics program on campus. This year’s Braudy Workshop was a great inspiration and impetus in that regard! Thanks to everyone who participated!

2010 Workshop: Incident at Morales

The 2nd annual Sidney and Anne Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Workshop on Engineering Management Ethics was held on Oct. 22, 2010. After opening remarks by Prof. Ron Kline, Dr. John Callister, the Harvey Kinzelberg Director for Entrepreneurship in Engineering at Cornell, gave a talk that analyzed known cases in engineering ethics, including the Gulf Coast oil gusher, and also presented reflections on safety and cost issues that he himself had been involved in when working in the auto industry. After the talk, the entire group watched the film, Incident at Morales, as had been done the previous year. After that, discussions of the issues in the film were conducted in small groups of 1-2 facilitators and 4-5 students each. Facilitators included Dr. Bob Braudy (’65, ’66) and Judi Braudy, Dr. Park Doing from the Bovay Program in History and Ethics of Engineering, Dr. Dana Radcliffe from the Johnson Business School, as well as Prof. Kline and Dr. Callister. Students from Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Computer Science, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Chemical and Bimolecular Engineering, The Johnson Business School, Information Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Operations Research and Information Engineering, Financial Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Science and Technology Studies, and Engineering Management were represented.

After the small group sessions, the entire group reconvened to discuss the issues raised in the small group discussions. Some of the issues brought up had to do with rivalries and tensions between different groups in organizations, like sales, engineering, and operations that can lead to situations of higher risk. At the close of the workshop, Dr. Braudy shared from his own experience with regard to compromise between financial pressure and safety. In student comments, many students pointed to the facilitators sharing of their own experiences as an appreciated and strong point of the workshop.

2009 Workshop: Incident at Morales

On Oct 30, 2009, the Bovay Program for History and Ethics of Engineering at Cornell hosted the Sidney and Ann Braudy and Louis and Edith Manker Workshop on Engineering Management Ethics.

The workshop brought together Master’s level engineering students from across different engineering disciplines, graduate students in the humanities, professors from the Engineering College, the Business School, and the Arts and Sciences College, as well as representatives from industry do discuss ethics at the intersection of engineering and management.

Professor Ron Kline, The Sue B. and Harry E. Bovay Jr. Professor of Engineering Ethics at Cornell gave opening remarks to begin the workshop, followed by Huy Doan, Vice President in Charge of Regulatory Compliance at Welch Allyn Corporation, who spoke about his experiences with the design and production of bio-medical devices. After Mr. Doan’s remarks, the assembled group watched the movie, “Incident at Morales”, a film developed by the National Institute for Engineering Ethics which puts forth issues in engineering management such as environmental considerations, whistleblowing, corporate culture, gender relations, and economic and market considerations. After the film, small groups were formed consisting of 4-5 students with 2-3 professors or industry representatives per group to discuss the issues in the film, and how those issues might be relevant to different types of engineering disciplines.

Representatives from the Engineering College included David Lipson from the Mechanical Engineering Department, John Belina from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Carol Grumbach from the Cornell Ethics in Public Life Program, Dana Radcliff of the Johnson Business School, and Dr. Bob Braudy (’65, ’66). After the small group discussions, the entire group reconvened to bring the different perspectives of each group to the table. This larger discussion was moderated by Professor Kline.

After the workshop, the students involved expressed enthusiasm for being able to have a direct and engaged discussion with the different faculty and industry representatives in an open forum where concerns and questions were invited for consideration. It was especially appreciated that the faculty and industry representatives spoke from their own experiences working with engineering projects.

The Bovay program looks forward to hosting a similar workshop in the Fall of 2010.