Engineering Education and Practice: Embracing a Catholic Vision

Introduction

introduction JameS l. heft, S.m., aND KeViN halliNaN Engineers are nearly invisible. few people in the United States, even engineers, can name a single living engineer who enjoys a high profile in the national media. Not many people really know what engineers do. Surprisingly, some people still believe engineers are the people who operate trains, rather than the people who labor to invent and produce a huge number of the goods of the economy. By means of technology, engineers imagine, design, and construct all sorts of artifacts that affect not only the lives of individual people, but also the very environment in which they live, to say nothing of the environment the world over. Despite the transformative power of the work of engineers in the world today, the official teachings of the Catholic Church, except perhaps in regard to use of military weapons, have provided little in the way of critical analysis of the technology engineers create. Equally lacking in contemporary Catholic thought is insight into how technologies might best contribute to the common good. given the everexpanding scale of technology and its power over the global socioeconomic situation, as well as the fragility of the earth’s natural environment, this lack of attention to technology in Catholic thought needs to be changed. 1 2 James L. Heft, S.M., & Kevin Hallinan Unfortunately, scholars in Catholic universities are to some degree complicit in this lacuna. while it is true that Catholic universities educate young men and women who enter a world dominated by the pervasive technologies created by engineers, they graduate few students with even a basic understanding of the role that technology will assume in their lives and culture. Moreover, the technical education that engineers receive at the sixteen United States Catholic universities offering engineering degrees largely mirrors the education secular universities provide their graduates; consequently, engineering graduates of both Catholic and secular universities all too often are similarly oblivious of the impact of the technologies they develop. few of these graduates, even those of Catholic universities, have been challenged to think through the possible relationships of their faith to their practice as engineers. we are unaware of any book that explores the role of engineering at Catholic universities from the perspectives of both humanities and engineering faculty, as well as their students. This book includes a rich variety of these perspectives, along with those of faculty from nonCatholic Christian universities who have also wrestled with how the Christian tradition should inform the engineering education they offer. It should be no surprise that the visions of engineering education that these faculty from Christian and Catholic universities share have much in common. It should also be recalled that Catholic universities in the United States require for all students, including engineers, courses in philosophy and theology. These requirements put faculty at Catholic universities in a unique position to consider the relevance of Catholic tradition to the development of technology. The chapters of this book, originally conference papers, provide initial but important steps toward two goals: first, helping Catholic engineering programs connect better to their founding traditions; and second, helping Christianity develop a vision for the appropriate development and use of technology globally. The ten chapters that comprise this book have depended upon and embody in various forms collaboration between educators from multiple disciplines: theologians, historians, ethicists, engineers. A number of Catholic universities have invested substantial effort and re- Introduction 3 sources to develop engineering faculty who are both interested in and capable of integrating a Catholic commitment to the common good with engineering education and research. Close collaboration between humanities and engineering faculty, though unusual, has contributed, as evidenced by many of the chapters of this book, to a distinctive and rich set of insights into an area far too long ignored: engineering and Catholic social teaching. Especially important was the contribution to this volume by engineers themselves—for in the end, it will be these faculty and their students who will need to understand and practice engineering within a Catholic vision of the person and society. Also important , however, is the substantive and sustained conversation between engineers on the one hand and philosophers, ethicists, and theologians on the other. Theologians, for example, who acquire a fuller understanding of the nature of the development of technology will be able to contribute to Catholic social teaching a body of knowledge now, as mentioned earlier, largely missing. Such cross-disciplinary work...