March 26
@
4:00 PM
–
5:00 PM
The ME 903: Graduate Student Lecture Series features campus and visiting speakers who present on a variety of research topics in the field of mechanical engineering. Professor Laura Grossenbacher is the Director of Technical Communication with the College of Engineering at UW-Madison.
Title: Navigating Ethical Challenges in Mechanical Engineering Research and Industry Contexts: Strategies for Ethical Leadership – and Followership
Abstract: This workshop will provide a brief background on engineering ethics challenges and the behavioral science that suggests we must think both with and beyond a Code of Ethics to deal with the moral ambiguities that can emerge in complex workplace contexts, including in university research labs and large engineering organizations. We will explore questions that engineering leaders should ask themselves – but also some “followership” strategies for those engineers who are not yet leaders.My hope is to engage the ME 903 students in discussion of a couple of unique cases to practice voicing, listening, and productively responding to the values of their peers.
Bio: Laura Grossenbacher is Director of Undergraduate Program Review and Director of the Technical Communication Program in the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and has been teaching courses in engineering communication and ethics for over twenty-five years to both undergraduates and graduate students in the UW Madison College of Engineering. Since year 2012 she has been developing ethics cases for use with a variety of different Professional Engineering groups, including engineers working for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, American Transmission Company, Madison Gas and Electric, WE Energies, Realtime Utility, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, and the American Water Resources Administration; she has also held ethics workshops for the Wisconsin Structural Engineering Code Refresher Annual Conference, the Wisconsin Concrete Pavement Association, the Wisconsin Society for Landscape Architects, and the American Society for Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers.
Her ethics workshops are designed to engage engineers and other professionals in discussing and applying codes of ethics, moral theory, and behavioral science to practical cases.She is a member of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE), and a current co-chair, with Rider Foley, of the Online Ethics Center Community of Practice in Teaching Engineering Ethics. Her most recent conference workshops have been for the annual ABET Symposium and at the American Society for Engineering Education on using applied ethics cases to interrogate challenges with power and inclusivity.