Rethinking the "Impact of Engineering on Society and the Environment"

The current CEAB attributes, including “the impact of engineering on society and the environment,” represent a welcome shift in engineering education towards acknowledging the sociotechnical nature of engineering practice. The “impact” attribute in particular also demonstrates a need and an opportunity for engineering educators and scholars with interdisciplinary backgrounds to meaningfully contribute to engineering education. In this paper, we offer reflections on and constructive criticism of the “impact” graduate attribute, drawing from our personal experiences as learners and teachers, and from literature in Science and Technology Studies, Engineering Studies, and the Learning Sciences. We develop three related critiques of the current graduate attribute, focusing on its presentation of relationships, directionality, and power. While the inclusion of the “impact” attribute represents a significant step for Canadian engineering towards a more just, sustainable, and decolonial vision for the future of the profession, we argue that the current attribute also reinforces dominant engineering ways of thinking about engineering-society relationships. We conclude the paper by offering a reworked version of the graduate attribute as a provocation and a starting point for discussion.