What Role Should Character Education Play in Engineering Education? A Special Session to Rethink How We Educate the Whole Engineer

The complexity of engineering practice requires engineers to make decisions for the betterment of society and public welfare. What role should character education play in engineering education? How might we better prepare engineers to tackle the complexity of real-world practice with virtues like integrity, humility, courage, purpose, empathy, practical wisdom, curiosity, creativity, justice, resilience, authenticity, etc.? In this special session, we invite engineers and engineering educators to rethink how we might educate the whole engineer holistically leveraging what we know about character education. The goals for the session will enable participants to: (1) Gain a common understanding of character education. (2) Reflect on the role that character education should play in engineering education. (3) Brainstorm ways upon which one might integrate character education in one's engineering course. (4) Develop some shared visioning for collective impact as engineering educators.