Calling and Motivation for International Engineering Pursuits

About Calling and Motivation for International Engineering Pursuits

Abstract

The practice of engineering is increasingly becoming a global enterprise. This involvement can range from working with large multinational corporations to small scale appropriate technology startups, such as creating a village-based energy business in a developing country. As we engineering educators seek to prepare students for future global participation, we may personally seek to become internationally active as well. We will use as a starting point the analysis done by Stephen Evans in his essay, The Calling of the Christian Scholar-Teacher1. Evans describes three types of Christian scholarship. The first one is purely vocational Christian scholarship. The professor is showing that Christians can work hard and do excellent work, but the result is not intrinsically different from that of others. His second type is implicit Christian scholarship. In this situation, the person’s Christian faith has shaped the choice of the problem to be analyzed and the hypothesis to be used. The third type is explicit Christian scholarship, where the Christian faith of the professor shapes the work in a direct and obvious way. All three of Evans’ categories can be regarded as Christian scholarship. We will use his categorization to examine the different ways Christian engineering professors can become directly involved with international activities. We will use personal examples from our own international activities to illustrate our points. The second author’s involvement in educational projects in Southeast Asia is an example of vocational Christian scholarship. His motive is based on his Christian faith, to serve his brothers and sisters, though the contributions and outcomes are relatively secular. His work is government sponsored and in-country colleagues do not share a strong faith. The first author’s involvement in Central America this past year is an example of implicit Christian scholarship. The project involved creating village-level energy systems in the rural part of a country. The work was sponsored by a secular foundation. Our contacts in the country were pastors from churches in the area. We wanted to do something that would help them and their parishioners. Our motives were Christian, our choice of local contacts was based on our shared faith, but our actual engineering implementation was not noticeably different from what others might do. Our university’s work in Kenya and Rwanda is an example of explicit Christian scholarship. Our motives are Christian and we are working with local Christian organizations. Our funding comes from donors who support our missionary goals. The result of our work is intended to help local poor Christians. As part of our work in the country we are also directly involved with Christian ministry activities.