Rhetorical Anlaysis of "Leadership and Management in Engineering"

Each of the articles posted on my blog the last several weeks have come from the journal, "Leadership and Management in Engineering" published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). ASCE is an organization of design professionals and educators that seek to protect the integrity of the civil engineering profession as well as promote research and development within the industry. 

One of ASCE's goals as a society is to teach and encourage the development of young leaders within the profession. The major concern is how the society approaches adapting the old master-apprentice form of training to complement new technological advances in the industry. Many of the young engineers are being instructed on how to operate the latest software and the real master's of the profession have no experience or desire to learn the new technologies. Ensuring that the next generation is equipped with leaders ready to take the profession into the future is top priority.
 
The articles are generally structured according to the typical style of engineering decision making process. First, the problem or question is identified. Then, the various solutions are presented along with supporting evidence. Finally, a best logical choice is selected according to good principles.

Care is taken to promote integrity and ethics in the engineering profession. These ideals are interwoven throughout each of the articles. Engineers are regarded as some of the most ethical individuals on the planet. It is this integrity that allows them to maintain the faith and confidence of the general public who rely on their decisions everyday.

Leadership is a quality that is timeless. There will always be a need for great leaders in our society. There are no qualifications to be a leader other than to be willing to lead. Though a wise leader will seek to learn the lessons of those that have gone before, not to follow in their footsteps but to use the principles they stood behind as a launching point to the next major achievement. The world is always in need of great leaders and these journal articles seek to promote those qualities of great leadership throughout the civil engineering community. 


 

Ethics of Technology

In his article "Tales of Technology and Ethics", Ken Maschke tackles the question of is it ethical for a young engineer to use computer software to complete calculations that he cannot do by hand. This is somewhat an extension of the question from before of whether it is best to teach fundamental knowledge to young engineers or to teach them the software. Ken discusses two main types of computer aid spreadsheet formation and the use of commercially available software and concludes that yes it is ethical for the engineer to use these tools to complete his job though he does offer a few observations of the necessity of good engineering judgment.

He discusses the topic of standardized spreadsheet formation to begin with and how some older engineers lacked confidence in these spreadsheets because they believed it could lead to repetitive bad calculations if a mistake was made in the formula. I had the experience during one of my internships of finding an error in one of our companies standardized spreadsheets. I had just taken a class that taught the theory behind what I was working on and though the error was minor, it had been used probably hundreds or thousands of times inaccurately. While spreadsheets can be a good tool, it is the engineers ethical responsibility to ensure that the formulas employed to complete the assigned task are accurate and complete.

Second he mentions about using some finite element analysis program to model a building and how the young engineers were taught the theory and inputs but never actually completed the calculations by hand. Also their supervisors allowed them to use the software because they didn't have time to complete the hand calculations themselves. He discusses how it is important to understand the assumptions being made by yourself and the software program as well as the importance of using good engineering judgment. Maschke recommends that teams should be comprised of a variety of age groups and experience levels for optimum performance and use of software and engineering judgment.

After all the engineer is ethically responsible for the spreadsheets that he makes and the software developer for ensuring that the software produces the appropriate results. Mistakes can be made just as easily by hand as they can be by computer. Do you feel safe allowing your fate to rest in a computer's calculations?