Posted on 10/03/2005 4:17:30 PM PDT by decimon
Golden - Lauren Cooper isn't the kind of engineering student who views the world in terms of steel and cable, equations and oil wells.
She sees Third World villages that need clean water, American Indian reservations without enough housing and South American communities with no electricity.
Cooper is one of about 20 students at the Colorado School of Mines enrolled in a new humanitarian engineering minor, thought to be the first undergraduate program of its kind at an engineering college in the United States.
The program and a similar graduate one at the University of Colorado at Boulder are at the forefront of a push to teach the softer side of engineering.
"We are creating a new breed of engineers who can change the planet," said Bernard Amadei, director of the Engineering for Developing Communities program at CU-Boulder. "This kind of engineering is more compassionate. You need to bring your heart into the picture."
Mines' humanitarian engineering minor, in its third year, has created a burst of humanitarianism, from student clubs to senior design projects that send students to improve living conditions in Honduras, Africa and Ecuador, said David Munoz, interim director of the engineering division.
Mines won a $1.1 million grant in 2003 from the Hewlett Foundation to start the program, and grant money has funded student trips across the globe.
In Colinas de Suiza, Honduras, students are designing a wastewater system that prevents pollution of an aquifer and allows villagers to use a urine mixture as fertilizer in vegetable gardens. Another group of students is helping the Gulkana Village in Alaska design a recreational-vehicle park so the native people can cash in on tourism.
At first, some faculty members complained that the new minor implied that the rest of engineering wasn't humanitarian. Munoz said that while most engineers are working to "improve man's situation on the planet," not all engineering is humanitarian.
"What about weaponry?" he said. "It may be necessary, but it's not humanitarian. It's caused us to ask some interesting questions."
Cooper, one of a handful of students accompanying Munoz to Honduras in October, said the difference is that a humanitarian engineer "has a philosophy of helping underserved communities."
"A humanitarian engineer also has an ethical sense, a broader cultural sense, and has a sensitivity of what constitutes appropriate technology," said Cooper, a senior mechanical engineering major.
Tibor Rozgonyi, head of the mining engineering department, said the new minor is a good supplement to the core mining curriculum. For decades, mining engineers have worked around the globe, fostering economic and social development, he said.
"But unfortunately, when money shows up, it drags with it some kind of negative aspect," said Rozgonyi, a native of Hungary.
Mines' program requires 28 credit hours in subjects ranging from ethics and water politics to writing proposals for nonprofit groups. The program isn't likely to become a major, because it isn't considered a core curriculum like mining, mechanical, petroleum or geological engineering, Munoz said.
The American Society for Engineering Education in Washington, D.C., isn't aware of any other humanitarian engineering program in this country, said Bob Black, deputy executive director.
The program is a result of a national push by accreditation agencies in the past few years to look at the softer side of engineering, he said. The objective is to introduce foreign languages, communication skills and cultural perspective to the stereotypically conservative, numbers-oriented, male engineering student, Black said.
The change already is drawing more women into the field.
Most of the Mines' humanitarian engineering minors are women, Munoz said. And in Boulder, almost half of the 25 graduate students in the Engineering for Developing Communities program are women, compared with about 20 percent of students in CU's engineering school, Amadei said.
The CU graduate program, which began in spring 2004, integrates languages, archaeology and sociology - disciplines not normally studied by "traditional engineers," he said.
The humanitarian engineering program has drawn mainstream Mines students not minoring in humanitarian engineering into altruistic projects.
Five seniors, all electrical and mechanical engineers, will fly to Ecuador and take a two-hour canoe ride down the Amazon River over Thanksgiving to reach a village without electricity. The students - none of whom is a humanitarian engineering minor - will install small solar panels on roofs that villagers can use to recharge batteries for flashlights made of PVC pipe.
Rafael Ribeiro, a senior from Brazil, said the project will help villagers economically by allowing them to work on crafts after dark. A mechanical engineering major, Ribeiro doesn't plan to make a career out of humanitarian engineering back in Brazil.
"But there are a lot of these things that I can take back to South America," he said.
Munoz, whose father is Honduran, said traveling to developing countries is an invaluable experience for students.
He recalls a student complaining on the way to Honduras that lugging bags of donated clothes had nothing to do with her project. After she saw impoverished villagers gathered in a schoolhouse, eager to meet the American students, she didn't say another word about the clothes.
"It changes the students," said Julie VanLaanen, the instructor leading the Ecuador trip. "They don't come back the same."
For the edification of you technical types.
Okay, interesting (I am a PE).
Sigh!
Some of the best in our business comes came from CSM.
Leftist word games.
Now they are screwing engineering too?! I would not go over bridge built by one of them compassionates!
Looks like bleeding-heart, fuzzy-headed, PC thinking has invaded the Engineering profession.
More politically correct idiocy. Political idiology has NOTHING to do with engineering. This is absolutely insane. This is all about engineering society, not solving problems.
Amen Brother! BS PE, MS EngrMgmt.
I wonder this numskull even knows how sexist this is: "Women are softer; they don't want to handle the hard numbers of physics and math and metal. They want talk, communication." Talk and communication won't solve the problem of hunger in Africa, or clean water. Or the ethnic-cleansing of Mexico's mestizo and black population. These are political problems that need to be looked at with hard facts and tough spines.
The award, which is named after President Herbert Hoover (an engineer himself) in honor of his heroic work to oversee the relief efforts in Europe after World War I, is awarded to "an engineer whose professional achievements and personal endeavors have advanced the well-being of humankind."
He recalls a student complaining on the way to Honduras that lugging bags of donated clothes had nothing to do with her project. After she saw impoverished villagers gathered in a schoolhouse, eager to meet the American students, she didn't say another word about the clothes.
I have ceased to be amazed at the number of people who are just plain ignorant of the level of poverty in the world (ie, Angelina Jolie). Have they never been outside their safe white suburbs in their life? Do they think TV is lying to them?
My husband said that the best part of being in engineering (undergraduate and masters) is that there was no political BS. You go to class, do the work and that was it. I guess they finally found a way around that. I also guess that all the water purifier systems designed by the non-humaitarian engineers didn't work as well because they were created out of necessity and not LOVE.
And you thought only architects smoked dope
Pure, undadulterated BS - PC applied to undermine engineering. Engineering is about dealing with FACTS NOT POLITICS - Engineers called upon to deal with the ambiguity of solving human problems end up on the wrong side because they don't deal in nuance or ambiguity. Ever think about the number of early Muslim suicide bombers were engineering students or why the professor at the university in Florida that was a leader in AL Quaeda was a professor of engineering? CSM has gone 'pink' in more ways than one - very sad day for the engineering profession. How 'sensitive' do you think the dynamics of building a bridge will be to taking a more sensitive approach to unbalanced forces?
I am puking all over my keyboard. The last bastion of sensibility - Engineering - is now being invaded by PC. NERDs Unite!!!
Good article, however I contest that being humanitarian is "soft".
Science, engineering ....facts can be used to solve human problems. After all, what is medicine except science employed to help humans?
I couldn't read this w/out picturing it being said to Dilbert in a cartoon strip.
What BS.
Nothing about economics. Nothing about practicality.
She/he/it is not engineering: It's political. Playing politics with somebody else's (taxpayers) money so the liberal (professor) "feels" good.
And "political engineering" is a truthful a statement as "politically correct."
Oh, now we have to hear sexist crap from an ignorant liberal woman?
Here's a little reality for Ms. Touchy-Feely PC Engineer. Engineering, unlike sociology or Hispanic studies or Feminist-Eats-Too-Much-Ben&Jerry's studies, requires being logical and practical. As for the compassion, genuine compassion comes naturally from actually working in a logical and practical way, and seeing how real work can help people in need. It does not come from making PC speeches. Maybe if Ms. Liberal talked to some people who are helping others without being PC, like our servicemen and women who are helping Iraqi civilians rebuild their society, she'll understand what real compassion is.
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