Best Ethics Essay

Civil and Environmental Engineering

The Department places a strong emphasis on educating future engineers on ethics and professionalism. In the required fall course CE 315 - The Civil and Environmental Engineering Profession, the primary assignment is an ethics essay paper. The topic is provided by the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) national organization for the annual Daniel W. Mead Contest, which was established and endowed in 1939 by past Society president Daniel W. Mead, Hon.M.ASCE. From all essays submitted in the course, the CEE Department selects the best paper from the class to submit to ASCE in the spring.

We recognize the following students who have been selected as the best essay for the year in which they took the course. PSU CEE has been very successful in the national contest, and the awards are noted.

Year	Best Essay Author	Title	ASCE Award
2021-2022	Mads Ank	Problem Solving of a Less Mathematical Sort
2020-2021	Lauren Shepard	An Argument Against the Status Quo	N/A Not ASCE Mead
2019-2020No	Evan Snow	A Healthy Professional Engineering Community is the Best Defense Against Corruption
2018-2019	Zac Foster	The Value of Diversity
2017-2018	Katherine Keeling	Leveraging Social Media for Public Service: An Ethical Imperative for Engineers	1st Place, PNW Regional
2016-2017	Lucina Selva	To License or Not to License
2015-2016	Corina Overman	The Ethics of an Engineer Abroad
2014-2015	Robert Kosowski	Pointing the Finger: Who is Liable for Injury on a Construction Site?
2013-2014	Tyler Williams	Worst-Case Scenario: the Civil Engineer's Ethical Responsibility to Prepare for Natural Disasters	4th Place, National
2012-2013	James Parker	A Global Code
2010-2011	Chad Norvell	Too Close for Comfort? the Report Card for America's Infrastructure in the Context of the Code of Ethics	4th Place, National
2005-2006	Benjamin Wiley	Risk and Implementing Innovative Research Solutions	1st Place, National
2004-2005	Gita Dombrowski	Ethical Considerations of Computer Modeling and Analysis in the Education of Structural Engineers	1st Place, Zone IV