September/October 2017

On Ethics
Team-Building Project Garners Annual Ethics Prize

If you’re an engineer working on a risk assessment team for the development of a driverless or autonomous vehicle operating system, what’s your ethical obligation when determining the safety risks to passengers, pedestrians, or other drivers in the event of an unavoidable crash?

Beth Hodgson, P.E., and her staff at Spring Environmental Inc. in Spokane, Washington, developed a PowerPoint presentation to show how an engineer’s ethical obligation is to advise the risk assessment team in ways that maintain public welfare overall. The presentation was the winning entry in NSPE’s 2017 Milton F. Lunch Ethics Contest. Hodgson’s team members included Julianne Gehlen, Amy Hooper, John Quinn, E.I.T., Jenelle R. P. Scott, P.E., Gabriel Sedbery, E.I.T., and Elizabeth Speare, E.I.T.

Hodgson used the contest as a team building activity for her staff and to help her staff members who are on the licensure track to gain exposure to engineering ethics issues and the NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers. Her team found the greatest value in the research they conducted on autonomous vehicles. “We had great discussions beyond the one particular scenario in the [contest’s] fact situation,” she says. “We’ve also continued to follow what’s in NSPE [publications] and other media relative to autonomous vehicles.”

This ethical dilemma was just one of the contest’s four situations from which NSPE members could select. The contest was revamped this year to allow for more creative ways for participants to show their ethics know-how. In addition to giving contestants more scenarios to choose from, contestants also had more options to demonstrate their understanding of the ethics issues. Essays, videos, photo essays, posters, and PowerPoint presentations are now accepted.

Contestants were asked to read the facts of the case, then develop a discussion and conclusion to respond to the included questions. They were required to provide references, citing specific sections of the Code of Ethics.

Hodgson and her team received a certificate and an award of $1,000.