In George Catalano's article "Promoting Peace in Engineering," he proposes that the way to promote peace is through the education of engineering. He proposes several ways of modifying the ABET Criteria. ABET, Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, is an organization that accredits college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology. Catalano discusses three different possible modifications to make to these university programs in order to promote peace. Those three modifications to promote peace are through the development of awareness for compassion, caution, and reflection; through an improved understanding of other cultures; and through peaceful conflict resolution.
Catalano begins by defending how he believes that society is promoting that engineers are playing crucial roles in defeating Iraq. "Technology developed by engineers in university research labs across the nation helped make the difference. (Catalano, p. 1)" He discusses that people feel not only comfortable with making weapons that take another human's life, but are proud of the accomplishment and that their product worked successfully with minimal friendly casualties. A person feels less emotionally attached to this thought of "I am about to kill another person," but since I am thousands of miles away and not pulling the trigger then there is nothing I can do. Well, nothing they can do except develop these weapons of destruction. To figure out how an attitude such as this exists can be looked back upon how engineering is taught to people. How these engineering programs teach students different information and what the students should be able to do after graduation.
ABET focuses on how programs result in the student's skills, knowledge, and behaviors. Catalano would like for a mention of promoting peace somewhere in the ABET structure.