Booksmart

With a tendency toward abstract, “big picture” thinking, many engineers are driven by a need to tackle huge, complex questions: How do you get to the moon and back in one piece? How do you understand the way that the human body works, in all its mystery?

“Engineers are trained to answer these bold questions by breaking it down, streamlining, taking a step-by-step, logical, linear process,” says Sarah Pfatteicher. “The challenge is to come out the other end remembering that big, messy place where you started, but recognizing that the simplifications you made to make sense of it aren’t the be-all and end-all.”

For people who place their faith in the solidity of facts — numbers, gauges, constants — disaster response provokes a unique and disconcerting challenge.

“For a lot of us, it manifests in responding to an emotional situation in a logical, intellectual sort of way,” says Pfatteicher. “Any human being, faced with a crisis or tragedy, finds what’s comfortable, what makes us feel at ease with the world.”

Pfatteicher’s book, the product of 10 years of work outside her “day job,” aims to provoke a discussion among engineering students, educators and anyone else who wants a better sense of what engineering is about. In an exploration of six events related to the collapse of the World Trade Center, she probes matters of ethics, philosophy and professionalism within engineering — and how engineering is currently taught.

“Part of the message of the book is that you have to be able to sit with the discomfort of ambiguity,” says Pfatteicher. “It’s about showing how hard it is to come up with a simple answer, or how limited and unsatisfactory a specific answer is.”

A regular Red Cross volunteer, Pfatteicher considers her work with students her most useful skill set. As an assistant dean in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, she supports students at difficult points in their lives: offering options, serving as a release valve for emotions and worries.

Whether a single student faces a sudden family tragedy or a nation faces the events of 9/11, one thing is clear: there are few easy answers. Still, people find ways to contribute what they can, breaking a complex problem into smaller needs to be met. Pfatteicher describes the aftermath of a recent house explosion in Sun Prairie.

“People randomly started showing up. A restaurant brought coffee and food because that’s what they had available to provide. After 9/11, people donated blood — there wasn’t a whole lot of need, but that’s what people were able to do. It’s very human to want to feel like you’re doing something.”

For many engineers, then, their comfort and their contribution are the same: analyzing a disaster in hopes of preventing it from ever occurring again.

Editor’s note: What are you reading? Wisconsin Week would like to periodically feature book suggestions from faculty and staff in this space. Tell us what you’re reading, what interested you in it and whether you’d recommend it.