Engineering Failures Education; A Public Safety Campaign

A fault in the altered design of skywalk bridges inside the Hyatt Regency hotel brought them crashing down on a crowd below on Melissa Mairs/KSHB. A fault in the altered design of skywalk bridges inside the Hyatt Regency hotel brought them crashing down on a crowd below on 7-17- 1981. Photo/Melissa Mairs, KSHB.

Engineering Failures Education (EFE) is a public safety campaign to require all students in the U.S. who are working toward a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering in the U.S. to receive instruction on engineering failures and the lessons learned from those failures.

This is needed because the engineering students of today will develop the technological solutions of tomorrow.

The EFA campaign will formulate a letter to the President of ABET that requests that ABET implement the necessary accreditation requirements necessary to meet that objective. This letter will come from a coalition of deans of ABET-accredited engineering schools throughout the US. The campaign envisions two or three high-profile deans acting as coalition leaders.

The letter to ABET will suggest a modification of a current student outcome whereby students must demonstrate awareness of past engineering failures.

The letter will also include collected support in the form of: 1) a broad based national list of engineers and experts, 2) a national list of organizations, societies, NGOs, nonprofits, agencies etc, and 3) evidence of broad based national public engagement.

ENGINEERS AND EXPERTS IN SUPPORT

LETTERS OF SUPPORT FROM ORGANIZATIONS

CITIZENS-AT-LARGE NATIONALLY IN SUPPORT

ASSOCIATED PRESS STORY

STRATEGIC PLAN TO REACH GOAL