Almost all those in academia agree with the value of liberal arts subjects are to "round out" an engineering education in order to make a "whole person" of the graduate. Engineering faculty largely agree that engineering students (and faculty) can learn a great deal from liberal arts faculty and their publications, particularly in the valuable area of "soft skills." Through our interactions on campus and the ABET 2000 Criteria we have certainly seen that engineers benefit from interaction with arts/humanities faculty and the materials they develop. Examples include dealing with team members and clients, interpersonal communications, understanding one's abilities and growth areas, communicating concepts to a wide audience, understanding ethical theories, wrestling with ambiguity in those situations which are not clearly black and white, and understanding social impacts of design. Is there a way to return the favor? Not so much consideration has been given to the opposite issue, which is that of helping liberal arts majors to understand some of the technical aspects of our society. Some technical concepts can be communicated with a relatively slight dependence upon mathematical understanding, and these concepts may even be helpful to liberal arts professors in their teaching of liberal arts courses. While there is definitely value in engineers learning something about the liberal arts there is also definitely value to liberal arts majors in learning something about engineering. Are there some things that "fuzzies" (a nickname heard on National Public Radio for humanities people, apparently popularized at Stanford) might learn from "techies" (NPR's nickname for engineering and technical people)?
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