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Residence Halls Named to Honor Faithful Service of 50-Year Faculty Members
Get PDFAt its annual May meeting, Cedarville University’s board of trustees honored the service of several long-standing faculty members — 50 years or longer — by unanimously naming residential facilities after them. Trustees also approved the appointment of 10 new faculty members for the 2024-25 academic year and affirmed a new six-year pathway for its Doctor of Pharmacy program
Queries for the Design Norms
Get PDFEngineers create technologies that shape the behaviors, priorities, and values of the user; for example, features of a road can be designed to encourage drivers to drive fast or to drive slowly, to watch for pedestrians or not, to encourage biking or not. It is not always easy to identify the values that a design fosters. To address this need, the authors of the 1986 book, Responsible Technology (RT) [1] derived eight principles from Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd’s “Aspects of Reality,” which is part of his Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea [2]. They asserted that the principles, which they called design norms (Table 1), could guide designers to produce work that shows love to God and to their neighbor. More recently, A Christian Field Guide to Technology for Engineers and Designers (CFG, 2022) provided a contemporary reflection on those design norms and included a ninth norm (Table 1) [3].
Despite the importance of these topics, there is limited guidance available in how an engineer might systematically apply these norms (or criteria in the case of ABET). In both RT and CFG, each norm is named, its meaning is discussed, and some examples of its application are provided. Several academic papers have built on the norms by using a case-study approach, applying the design norms to specific situations [4], [5], [6]. In all these cases, the impact of the norm on the designed item clarifies the authors’ understanding of the norm, but no systematic way to apply the norms to an engineering design has been fully explored.
In this paper is broken into two parts. In part one, we use the model of Quaker Queries to develop a series of questions to help designers apply the norms, and then in part two, we present the results from a survey of engineers who consider how the queries might help them evaluate a recent design they have work on.
In addition, ABET Student Outcomes 2 and 4 indicate that graduates from engineering programs must be able to recognize and consider the impact of their design solution on “public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors” [7]. The development of an instrument for applying the design norms can help students evaluate their designs with respect to the impacts identified in Outcomes 2 and 4. These impacts are compared to the design norms in Table 1
Equipping Engineering Students to Reach the Nations—Undergraduate Course in Intercultural Problem Solving
Get PDFGraduates from Engineering programs are heading into increasingly diverse communities in the United States and beyond. The ability of an engineer to effectively work with people from diverse cultural backgrounds is increasingly crucial--for the success of the engineer’s professional career, for the creation of ethical, culturally-responsive engineering solutions, and above all, for fulfilling the biblical mandate of loving our neighbors well and carrying out the great commission of making disciples of all nations.
The paper will present the approach taken at John Brown University Department of Engineering, which is to teach a required “Intercultural Problem Solving” class for engineering students. A biblical foundation is first laid out—that humans are created in the image of God and have been given the good task to shape their culture. Students engage in book readings and discussions about God’s call to love our neighbor, and that loving involves not just good intentions but culturally appropriate ways to engage in grace and truth. The usage of the Cultural Intelligence platform will be discussed—as a framework for students to self-assess their capabilities in intercultural situations, as well as for teaching various aspects of intercultural engagement. The class also teaches different cultural dimensions to help students associate common relational and work issues with cultural backgrounds and provide guidance in intercultural communication. The paper will highlight various aspects of the course including several case studies, role-playing activities, assignments and guest lectures that help achieve the course objectives