Great post, Lindsay! I really like your questions about how we can make an inclusive classroom and space where students can be their authentic selves.
When people experience battle fatigue I hear the common response is best explained by this gif.
https://media.giphy.com/media/Ozf9DBfaBGT8Q/giphy.gif

Palmer defined the “new professional” as “a person who is not only competent in his or her discipline but has the skill and the will to deal with the institutional pathologies that threaten the profession’s highest standards.

^ This is why we need liberal arts in STEM. Although 39 credit hours does sound like a whole lot, and undergraduate engineering tends to be a 5-year program here as well, though not intentionally (sinister joke). The place where an emphasis on ethics and diversity is not an engineering classroom (at this time). It’s in philosophy, history, sociology, religion, and all those other subject areas that make most engineers feel icky.

I wonder if the difference is that we shifted from a very liberal (that is diverse) education structure to a highly specialized one.
Here’s the catalog for UC Davis from 1960-1961 (http://catalog.ucdavis.edu/upload/GenCatArchive/GenCat19601961.pdf) the engineering section starts on page 85. I haven’t gotten to take a close look at it yet, but I would be curious if there are many differences between then and now.

https://media.giphy.com/media/mDtdH6h0HuYkU/giphy.gif
You make some good points, the first one I notice is the prevalence of minimizing our role as graduate students or researchers in training. The second, the lack of empathy/emotion in science. I work in transportation safety, so sometimes I have to do an empathy check, typically when grad school has me down to remind myself what I’m doing today will save lives tomorrow.
There’s saying (often attributed to Joseph Stalin), “one death is a tragedy; one million deaths is a statistic.” People in my field talk about traffic fatalities like Stalin, when we really need to treat every one of them as the tragedies that they are.

Monica’s blog has a good bit on ethics as it related to Dr. Marc Edwards & the Flint Water Crisis. You should check it out when you have a moment.
http://bstudentsrock.com/gedis17/he-chose-to-do-what-is-right-not-what-is-easy

Dr. Edwards did what all engineers are supposed to do. As an engineer, I ascribe to beliefs of the Order of the Engineer (http://www.order-of-the-engineer.org/?page_id=6) and the Cannon of Engineering Ethics (https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics).
I think in educating future engineers, if we continue to have ethics as our foundation we can have more people like Dr. Edwards who are willing to do the right thing.
It is our obligation (literally, our responsibility as engineers) to be honest, impartial, and fair. It seems like we have strayed from the path a bit.

Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:

1. Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
2. Perform services only in areas of their competence.
3. Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
5. Avoid deceptive acts.
6. Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation, and usefulness of the profession.

You make an excellent point. Sometimes we have difficulty seeing the forest through the trees. What we really need to do as educators and in general is step back from the details of the problem and recalibrate.