Courses examining the ethical obligations of professionals are part of some state licensing requirements. The courses listed below are individual and not part of a particular curriculum, but they can be completed for credit like all other courses in the School of Risk Management and applied to various state professional licenses either to meet specific requirements or as part of general continuing education credits.

Designers, planners, architects, landscape architects, and engineers all need to know about and adhere to established codes of ethics. In this course, you will learn how to protect the public and the environment now as well as in the future. 

This course examines the NSPE Code of Ethics. Design professionals will review cases ruled upon by the NSPE Board of Ethical Review, which will be key to helping determine how design professionals should act when faced with ethical decisions. The course explore each of the six NSPE fundamental canons. 

Engineering is an important and learned profession. As a member of the engineering profession, professionals are expected to maintain the highest standards of honesty and integrity. To continue this effectiveness, the services that you as an engineer provide require honesty, impartiality, fairness, and equity, and must be dedicated to the protection of the public safety, health, and welfare. Engineers must adhere to a standard of professional behavior upholding the highest principles of ethical conduct. We call the standard of behavior “engineering ethics,” and embody it in the codes of ethics published by the state boards and by professional societies, such as NSPE.

In this second course, we will continue the direction of the NSPE Code of Ethics by looking at a few case studies and how the Code specifically applies in each case. We will look into a case involving the use of unlicensed software to create work products. We will review the concept of conflict of interest. Finally, we will discuss cases involving licensure and practicing in different states.

This course will focus on how professional ethics are no longer black and white, they are shades of green. Not only do design professionals have an obligation to design for the health, welfare, and safety of the people they represent, they also have an obligation to safeguard the environment. This course will discuss why design professionals have a green ethical obligation to promote excellence in design and endeavor to conserve and preserve the integrity and heritage of the natural and built environment. Discussion will focus on how professional societies and registration boards are holding design professionals accountable for sustainable design and planning practices and to consider the environment in everything they do.

Examining the ethics of an individual’s actions, given a theoretical or “teaching” situation, is a standard method of appraising and judging professional practices. Many state boards of registration have promulgated either a “Code of Ethics” or a “Creed and Canons” with the intention of setting the bar for professional ethics. These guides are based on moral assumptions considered essential to our culture, and are the standards by which professionals are expected to make decisions, behave, and act. 

This course examines seven situations that surveyors may commonly face, and discusses correct actions in the context of what the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) calls its “Surveyor’s Creed and Canons.” This course reviews the basic ethics and conduct expected of surveyors in professional practice.

All engineering designs and all operations of engineered systems expose the public to some risk. Engineers are ethically obligated to protect the public from unacceptable levels of risk, which raises the questions: How is risk defined and quantified? What levels of risk are acceptable? In this course, learn how to evaluate risks imposed on the public by engineers. Professionals will also learn ways to determine which risks are acceptable and which are unacceptable.

Organizational issues can affect the decisions made by engineers every day. This course focuses on issues facing engineers working in large organizations. Case studies of organization-induced problems (such as the two space shuttle failures, the Macondo blowout, the GM ignition switch case) will be used to help participants recognize when organizational problems might cause ethical issues for engineers.