Engineering Change Lab-USA (ECL-USA) is a catalyst for change within the engineering community, helping it reach its highest potential on behalf of society
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“The United States will not be able to respond to climate change, drive better economic outcomes, or deliver broader measures of social equality if the physical world remains underdeveloped…. American governance is stronger if it can demonstrate that it has a political system capable of delivering essential services to its people, including safe public streets, functioning mass transit, and plentiful housing. For various American ideals to be fully realized, the country will need to recover its ethos of building…”
Dan Wang, Breakneck

“Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.”
David Sloane Wilson and Edward (E.O.) Wilson

In his recent book, Breakneck, author Dan Wang highlights the differences between China, which he characterizes as an engineering state, and the United States, which he characterizes as a lawyerly society. As the quote above illustrates, the United States cannot address the engineering challenges of the 21st century unless we can shift away from our recent history as a lawyerly society to one that is able to build the infrastructure that society requires.

Engineering Change Lab – USA’s recent summit, Transforming the Regulatory System, focused on one important dimension of this shift – the regulatory system of the U.S. for infrastructure, energy, and the environment. Summit participants explored the wicked problem of transformative regulatory reform – going beyond small-scale tweaks and adjustments (common in many regulatory reform efforts) to thinking big about large-scale transformation and the role the engineering community could play leading those efforts.

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Open Call Invitation

Through stories, essays, and videos, Engineering Change Lab – USA (ECL), in association with the US Water Alliance, seeks to inspire and empower members of the engineering community to evolve and deepen their commitment to a new “water ethic” for the 21^st Century, underpinning their role as stewards of water on behalf of society.

The springboard for this creative effort is an initial set of values, beliefs, and mindsets drawn from a deep dive into this theme at ECL’s Spring 2025 Envisioning a New Water Ethic Summit. Modeling the writings of Aldo Leopold and his classic work, The Sand County Almanac, we hope these collected narratives will illustrate how this emerging ethic can contribute to positive futures for water in our communities, ecosystems, and society.

The full report from this summit is available on the ECL website at this link. A summary of the ethical themes that emerged at the summit is included with the Open Call Invitation and Submission Guidelines.

ECL and the US Water Alliance together are seeking a diverse set of leaders, practitioners, and stakeholders within the engineering community to contribute their perspectives and stories to help shape and communicate this emergent water ethic.

Through this open call invitation, we hope to combine engineering community perspectives with those drawn from an invited set of researchers, writers, artists, and advocates.

So far, our outreach to invited contributors has resulted in commitments from a cross section of water sector experts from universities, public sector agencies, and private sector practitioners.

Our intended outcome for this effort will be an open-access digital book containing both sets of narratives (invited and open-call). We intend to widely publicize the book throughout the engineering community, including through our partnership with the US Water Alliance.

If you are interested in submitting your narrative for consideration for inclusion in the project, please reach out to Mike McMeekin, ECL’s Executive Director ([email protected]). More information regarding the project can be found in the Open Call Invitation and Submission Guidelines. All submissions are due by August 31, 2026.

ECL’s recent Beyond Disruption summit featured an exploration of the disruptions being experienced by the engineering community, the impact of these disruptions, and the responses needed from the engineering community. This “Voices from ECL” series will feature interviews with several of the attendees at the summit.

Part 5

Gary Bertoline is Emeritus Dean and Distinguished Professor at Purdue University and leader of ASEE’s Engineering Mindset report. Key points highlighted by Gary include the following.

• Higher education, including engineering education, needs to be disrupted. Incremental changes are not keeping up with the pace of change in technology and society. This disruption will bring opportunities.
• The engineering community faces the risk of irrelevance if we are seen as favoring the status quo in the face of changes.
• Engineering has more potential for creating positive changes in the world than any other profession. This is not understood in society, and we need to be more effective at communicating our positive impact.
• While struggling with technological change, such as AI, and social media distractions, today’s college students still display energy, enthusiasm, and optimism especially when presented with opportunities.
• ECL’s approach to learning challenges ingrained ways of thinking, and the diverse participants in the summit have demonstrated an energy for change.
• ECL’s summit has demonstrated the need for one voice from the engineering community. We need to create a movement for positive change.

The full interview with Gary is available at this link.

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