IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021 - 51

Figure 1. Student-run skill share, which
gives PInT members a space to learn
from each other.
models an ethic of care, or an orientation toward
actively sensing and responding to others' needs [5].
We also applied the ethic of care through deep listening
[6], an activity we led with members of PInT in an
effort to cultivate a " contemplative, iteratively reflective "
engineering culture. Integrating the ethic of care in our
daily practices helped us support one another. When
Emma wrote the rest of us a letter to express how she
felt after shouldering too many organizing tasks without
recognition, these practices prompted us to prioritize
her emotions and our team relationship. Valuing our
emotions in our engineering education pushes against
harmful norms and produces a more caring engineering
education experience.
Embracing slowness and deliberation
Practicing contemplation, slowness, and deliberation
has helped us become better public interest
technologists. We had been enculturated in engineering-dominant
ideologies of positivism, depoliticization,
and efficiency, which led to a deep belief
of engineering as an inherent neutral good [7], [8].
Slowing down and questioning who we were doing
our work for; who our work will help, harm, or miss;
and what forms of knowledge we could be missing
[4] shifted us to an ethic of care.
For instance, we refused to build a web scraping
tool which intended to help law enforcement rescue
victims of human trafficking, but would endanger
not only these victims, but voluntary sex workers as
well. We arrived at a decision of design refusal [9]
after a deliberative process that included consulting
experts, reflecting on our values, and understanding
September 2021
Figure 2. Sticky notes on a window from
an early facilitated reflection activity
that invited new PInT members to
explore what they need to feel support
and emotional safety.
the power relations that we could be perpetuating.
Slowness and deliberation adjust us toward " reflection-in-action "
[10] and allow us to better care for
the needs of PInT and each other. This is exemplified
in our efforts to reflect on our working styles as
an organizer team and to write a deliberate strategic
plan for PInT's future. Embracing slowness and
deliberation shifts us from traditionally harmful ideologies
to more caring mindsets.
Claiming student ownership
With PInT, we are solidifying trust in our instincts
and decision-making abilities and dissociating from
the leadership structures within traditional engineering
education [1]. For example, when Sam was designing
PInT's summer fellowship program, she instinctively
dealt with uncertainty by approaching our faculty advisor
seeking " expertise " and permission. Rather than
providing specific next steps, our advisor validated
Sam's knowledge and ownership of the project. This
showed her that she already knew how to design a fellowship
for students, being a student herself.
Sometimes we don't have all the expertise. For
instance, when teams encountered roadblocks in
their technical consulting projects, we hosted a
design review to solicit feedback from community
members. While the teams were initially hesitant to
ask for help, they learned to embrace it once they
experienced the transformative nature of new suggestions
and alternative paths. Similarly, in the antihuman-trafficking
case, we reached out to a subject
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