Paper short abstract:

How might engineers apply anthropological ethical tenets in community-based work? This paper compares ethical approaches to community work and describes how one anthropologist is teaching anthropological ethics in STEM classrooms.

Paper long abstract:

As a trained anthropologist, I have worked as an ethnographer-for-hire in market research and a facilitator for diversity and intercultural competency training, and now, I teach undergraduate engineering students how to communicate in today's diverse workplace. Using the Engineering classroom as my field site, this paper explores the application of anthropological ethical tenets into engineering curriculum as an innovative way to teach about multivocality and define "community" for future engineers working in applied contexts. Bucciarelli has argued that undergraduate engineering education lacks "attention to the complexities of context, [is] almost solely focused on individual agency [argued to be antithetical to 'real' workplace experiences], (and reflects) too narrow and simplistic a view of the responsibilities of the practicing engineer" (2007, 141). Anthropologists and engineers approach community engagement differently and from my experience working outside the discipline, I argue there is potential to integrate an anthropological (ethical) approach - the tenets we use for research - into an engineer's community-based practice. This paper positions the teaching and learning of anthropology in non-anthropological environments as a 'cross-cultural' case study; In so doing, I look to articulate possible goals for teaching the next generation of engineering students and to explore a case study of what moving beyond the disciple looks like today.