Two TU Delft PhD candidates have come up with a creative way to challenge students to think about the ethical aspects of engineering. The Impact! Competition, created by Zoë Robaey and Shannon Spruit, is an opportunity for students to explore and express their ideas about being morally responsible in their jobs as engineers.
Robaey, originally from Montreal, and Spruit, who is Dutch, both work in the the Ethics/Philosophy of Technology section under the Technology, Policy and Management (TPM) Faculty. “A lot of people don’t even know that there is a philosophy department at TU Delft,” said Robaey. As part of TPM, they are responsible for teaching ethics to engineering students at TU Delft. Their course requires skills like analytical reading and writing that students in the humanities learn to develop, but not necessarily engineers.
Their experiences in the classroom motivated Robaey and Spruit to be innovative in their teaching methods. So the pair is experimenting with using creative ways to stimulate and express ethical reflection by launching an art competition for students. The project is being funded through a VICI grant from Nederlandse Vereniging voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek.
Participants in the competition will attend a series of workshops aimed at getting them to reflect on the social implications of their work as engineers. Robaey said they want to provoke people to think about potential problems and ask questions like how technology will impact society, if it will be fair, and if it will benefit lots of people or just a few. “It’s about people feeling responsible for something,” she said.
The workshops will culminate with participants creating their own work of art, with the help of a coach, to represent their reflections. “We’re calling it art work,” said Robaey, “but it could be anything.” Ideas include photos, paintings, or even performances. Organizers plan to exhibit the projects in the city of Delft after the final. In addition to inspiring engineers to be morally responsible, monetary prizes will be awarded to the top three participants as judged by a panel.
Robaey and Spruit are collaborating on this project with the hope of changing the status quo. As stated on their website, “We think that through using different kind of media, students may be freer and will have more room for emotional and intuitive moral responses rather than the traditional ways of teaching engineering ethics.”
Participation in the contest is free, but registration is required by March 10 due to limited space. In addition, students can submit a work into the competition even if they don’t attend the workshops. For more information visit their website.
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