Destination: Ferguson, Missouri

Destination: Ferguson, Missouri – Looking at Urban Sustainability Challenges through the Lens of Engineering Ethics, Leadership, and Conflict-Management

Due to the complexity of what engineering students must learn to be technically competent in their fields, little time is left to take courses that sight see the human dimension. The goal of this course was to put in context the importance of interacting with a community while learning about ethics, leadership, and conflict-management. The community can be a classroom and what Sandra Matteuci did was take a diverse group of engineering students – some from small towns, some from cities, and some from other countries – and spent a week visiting various locations in Ferguson. Students were exposed to unfamiliar topics: learning about municipal courts, challenges public schools face in underserved areas, and what happens to the public library in the wake of mass demonstrations.  With this food for thought, the students continued their teamwork for the rest of the semester – interacting with community members and putting together a final research project.