Proselytizing Problem-Solving:The Religious and Secular Values of Engineering for Good

Over the last 20 years, "engineering for good" has grown into a widespread phenomenon premised on the belief that engineers can and should combine technical expertise with the desire to make positive change. In the United States and abroad, many organizations conduct projects that enroll over ten thousand engineering students, faculty, and professionals. These engineers pursue their "doing good" efforts in the context of the history of Christian missions and colonialism, failed development efforts, and often competing individual and institutional values. These individual and institutional values are entangled in religious analogies and engineers' desire to fit into an overwhelmingly "secularized" profession. Given these nuanced dynamics, what do engineers mean when they say they want to "do good"? In this dissertation, I ask, what is engineering for good? Further, how do different individual and institutional values impact what engineering for good is and does? To answer these questions, I use three case studies of engineers for good being trained in institutions of higher education: Colorado School of Mines (CSM), Baylor University, and University of San Diego (USD)—a public (secular), Baptist, and Catholic university, respectively. I connect the training and practice of engineers for good to three larger social, cultural, and political movements—international development, humanitarian service, and social justice. I argue that engineers for good navigate complex dimensions of assessing and assigning need as they decide what it means to do their work well. These new humanitarians do not simply engage in pro bono efforts done for new users that cannot afford their traditional services. They are creating a new type of engineering to address newly recognized forms of need. Those involved in engineering for good redefine what engineering can and should be used for by drawing on larger values to pursue their purpose and reconcile this purpose with their professional identity. I conclude by showing what the formation of the engineering for good movement illuminates about good engineering. A close examination of the movement reveals engineers reformulating their relationship to notions of technological and moral progress. I show how differing values impact engineering pedagogy and practice. I argue that these engineers are remaking development, their identities, and the engineering profession itself. These findings are core not only to science and technology studies scholars, but historians, political scientists, religious studies scholars, and practitioners—in academia, the non-profit sector, and government aid work— just trying to "do good."

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Science and Technology Studies

Department dc:contributor.department

Science and Technology Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Kleine, Marie Mella Stettler

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Wisnioski, Matthew

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Riley, Donna M.
• Downey, Gary L.
• Curtis, Heather D.
• Britt, Brian M.

• STS
• engineering
• values
• humanitarianism
• ethnography
• secularity

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:29073

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/120720