Ethical decision-making is essential to professionalism in engineering. For that reason, ethics is a required topic in an ABET approved engineering curriculum and it must be a foundational strand that runs throughout the entire curriculum. In this paper the curriculum approach that is under development at the Padnos School of Engineering (PSE) at Grand Valley State University will be described. The design of this program draws heavily from the successful approach used at the service academies--in particular West Point and the United States Naval Academy. As is the case for the service academies, all students are introduced to the "Honor Concept" (which includes an Honor Code) as freshmen. As an element of professionalism the PSE program requires 1500 hours of co-op experience which is normally divided into three semesters of full-time work alternated with academic semesters during the last two years of the program. This offers the faculty an opportunity to teach ethics as a natural aspect of professionalism through the academic requirements for co-op. In addition to required elements throughout the program, the students are offered opportunities to participate in service projects which highlight responsible citizenship. These elements and other parts of the approach will be described.

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Energy, environmental issues and society awareness are three of the main components in many engineering problems. Engineering Schools use general education courses to address these issues. However, the bridge between the engineering skills and these issues is still a challenge. In the present work, an open-ended design project was used in a senior level Heat Transfer course to address this need. The students were asked to work in teams to design and build a one- or two-person shelter that is built from recycling material and has no active heat source. The shelter should be portable and easily assembled and disassembled using limited tools to match the use in the time of crises or in developing countries. The details of the project are presented and supported by samples from the students’ work.

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