Professor Seamus Freyne
Manhattan College School of Engineering
We live in a world where engineers must not think just about design, but also about the implications of those designs and the actions or policies that lead to them, and how they impact people and the environment. Engineering ethics carries momentous importance. At this seminar Professional Engineers, Manhattan College faculty, and Manhattan College engineering students are invited to participate in a review of the NSPE Code of Ethics and discuss its application to several historical case studies as well as to contemporary issues. The current Milton F. Lunch Ethics contest problem will be presented at the end of the session and students organized into teams to prepare submissions for the contest. The student teams will present their submissions at a second seminar scheduled for March 24 to an audience of professional engineers and faculty, who will provide comments.
We anticipate that the student teams will then submit their work to NSPE as contest entries. The winning entry will receive an award of $1,000 ($500 to the NSPE state society or NSPE chapter and $500 divided among the authors) provided by NSPE and the NSPE Educational Foundation, a certificate, and recognition in PE magazine, as well as other external media outlets. More information about the contest can be found at the NSPE Ethics Contest page.
If you plan to attend, we recommend that you download the NSPE Code of Ethics and print it out to bring to the meeting.
Professor Seamus Freyne, of the faculty at Manhattan College in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, will lead the seminars. Since 2005, Professor Freyne has taught the ethics module in the Introduction to Engineering course at Manhattan. He is scheduled to give a presentation titled “A Preliminary Survey of Engineering Ethics Courses Nationwide,” at the annual conference of the American Society for Engineering Education in Austin, Texas this June. Professor Freyne, who is also active with the American Society of Civil Engineers, earned a Ph.D. in civil engineering at the University of Oklahoma.