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Cornell University

Sue G. and Harry E. Bovay Program in the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering

Teaching

The central activities of the Bovay Engineering Ethics Program are in undergraduate engineering education at Cornell. This page highlights the program’s teaching in the current academic year. Previous years’ teaching activities are in the Teaching Archives.

First-Year Engineering Seminar

As part of the College of Engineering’s first-year experience, all first-year students take ENGRG 1050 Engineering Seminar in their first fall semester. Students meet once weekly with their faculty advisors in a small class, and are introduced to various aspects of academic life at Cornell, as well as important facets of the engineering profession. The Bovay Engineering Ethics Program takes one session in each section in ENGRG 1050 to introduce students to ethics as a component of engineering practice.

Beginning in Fall 2024, the ethics component of ENGRG 1050 will be delivered through a flipped classroom module. Before meeting in-person for the week, students watch a series of short lectures and complete activities online. In-class, students discuss an ethical decision as part of an engineering project; this discussion is facilitated by Peer and Faculty Advisors. After class, students complete a reflection assignment.

ENGRG 1050 ethics modules from past years.

Ethics Modules

Each semester, the Bovay Engineering Ethics Program visits a number of engineering courses to deliver ethics modules. These are designed to introduce students to social and ethical issues that arise in connection with the engineering topics they are studying, and to give students practice in using their ethical reasoning to make responsible decisions in engineering practice.

Fall 2024 Modules

  • CEE 1160 / ENGRI 1160 Modern Structures. Course head: Chloé Arson.
  • CEE 4640 / 6648 Sustainable Transportation Systems Design. Course head: Francis Vanek.
  • EAS 4940 / 6920 Machine Learning in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. Course head: Riley Culberg.
  • MAE 6130 Foundations and Frontiers of Engineered Living Materials. Course head: Meredith Silberstein.

Ethics modules from previous years.

Courses

Below are the courses offered by the Bovay Engineering Ethics Program in the current academic year.

Past years’ courses.

ENGRG 3600 Ethics in Engineering Practice

Offered each spring, ENGRG 3600 is survey of topics in engineering ethics. The course surveys a range of ethical issues that arise in professional engineering, and provides discussion- and writing-based practice in analyzing and addressing them. Using normative frameworks from professional codes, philosophical ethics, value-sensitive design, feminist theory, and science & technology studies, the course engages with a series of historical, current, and fictional case studies. Specific topics to be discussed may include: privacy, consumer rights, smart cities, geoengineering, artificial intelligence, and cloning. Instruction is through a mix of lectures and discussions.

This course is held with STS 3601 and PHIL 2471. It fulfills a liberal studies distribution requirement for engineering majors (Group 3: Ethics, Cognition, and Moral Reasoning > Knowledge, Cognition, and Morality).

ENGRG 3605 Ethics of Computing and Artificial Intelligence Technologies

First offered in Fall 2024, ENGRG 3605 is a survey of ethical issues specific to computing technologies, including AI. Computing is ubiquitous in modern life, and essential to professional work in engineering, science, and many other disciplines. However, computing technologies, especially those referred to as “artificial intelligence,” raise distinctive normative issues. This course surveys a variety of social, ethical, and political issues that arise in connection with computing technologies, including artificial intelligence, from a philosophical perspective. Specific topics may include: hacking, privacy, intellectual property, persuasive and deceptive design, social injustices reinforced by algorithmic systems, machine ethics, and science fiction issues such as robot rights or existential risks posed by superintelligent computer systems. Content delivery will be through a mix of lectures, readings, and in-class discussion.

This course counts towards the AI Minor offered by the Cornell Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. It can be used to fulfill either the “Foundations of AI: Ethics, Governance & Policy” requirement, or a minor elective.