Ethics

The Academy of Geo-Professionals will be hosting our first ethics session at the 2012 GeoCongress in Oakland, California. The session will take place on Sunday, March 25th from 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm. The session will be lead by Ron Smith, PE, D.GE, F.ASCE. We'd also like to recognize some of the volunteers who are helping to organize the session, including: Bob Holtz, PhD, PE, D.GE, Dist.M.ASCE, Arlan Rippe, PE, GE, D.GE, F.ASCE, Steven Thorne, PE, D.GE, M.ASCE, 2012 AGP President, and Satya Varadhi, PhD, PE, D.GE, M.ASCE. The session will be the first of its kind at a Geo-Institute event. It will be open to all conference attendees at no additional cost.

Tentative Agenda:

AGP ETHICS TRAINING SESSION -- Sunday March 25, 2012: 1-4pm

Session Overview: This session has been designed for participants to gain 2 PDH credits applicable to their annual/biennial requirement for AGP Diplomate status and/or PE license.

The first half of the session is a civil engineering ethics refresher and train-the-trainer presentation. This overview of civil engineering ethics, provided as a PowerPoint Presentation with instructor notes, will serve as a refresher course and will provide participants with the tools to instruct students and young engineers in the importance of the ethics that define our profession, namely developing facilities that protecting the safety, health and welfare of the general public. Because of the critical need for practitioners to carry the ethics message to students and young engineers, many states award instructors credits equal to twice the amount of time (1 hour) spent in presenting the course.

The second half of the session will involve the attendees in an hour study of case histories focused on ethical situations in geotechnical engineering. There will be four round table groups charged with reviewing different case histories. Each group will be monitored a member of the session organizing committee, and the group’s task will be to review, discuss and draw conclusions regarding the ethical issues involved. Following the analysis period, each group, acting through an elected representative will report on their case-history study to the assembled session group.

Session Outline:

• Overview (10 min.) of the session, explaining the hope that this session will encourage the participants taking this course to carry the ethic message to ASCE student groups and other appropriate audiences.
• Ethics Training (60 min.):Basic training as a refresher for session participants and a basis for outreach to engineering students
• Ethics 101 PowerPoint presentation with presenter’s notes lead by Smith
• Objective 1: Overview of the spectrum from individual moral codes to ethical requirements for learned professionals who, by virtue of education and training, provide services to the general public that they are not capable of directly evaluating
• Objective 2: Building an understanding of profession and the obligations of professionals as set forth in their codes of ethics and state license requirements
• Objective 3: Review the seven Canons of the ASCE Code of Ethics
• Break (15 min.)
• Ethics Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering (60 min.)
• Committee members are to identify or develop case histories for each of four planned round table groups and serve as moderators for discussions involving the cases.
• Round Table Groups (45 min): Moderators will present the case to their groups and moderate discussions. Each group will be asked to draw conclusions and make recommendations for their case.
• Group Reporting (20min.): Each group (5min.) will name an individual from their group to present a summary of their findings to the assembled class.
• Wrap-Up (15min)

To register for the conference (including the ethics session), please click here.

For ASCE's Ethics: Guidelines for Professional Conduct for Civil Engineers, please click here.

To read more about ethics on ASCE's page, including case histories, please click here.