IU students placed sixth at the 2010 Ethics Bowl
Jarrod Lowery (left), Dylan Pittman, Laura Goins, Kyle Fletcher and Olufemi Taiwo compete at the Central States regional Ethics Bowl at Marian University in Indianapolis.
Ethics as a competitive sport? For hundreds of undergraduates across the country, it is. Each fall they study a dozen cases full of ethical issues, preparing to defend their views of the cases in a regional competition.
The IU team members for 2010-11 were:
- Laura Goins, a senior majoring in Mathematics and Philosophy
- Kyle Fletcher, a junior majoring in Philosophy and Economics
- Jarrod Lowery, a sophomore majoring in Economics
- Dylan Pittman, a senior majoring in Political Science, Economics, and Spanish
- Olufemi Taiwo, a junior majoring in Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy
Each year, the Poynter Center sponsors a team consisting of five undergraduate students to prepare, travel, and compete in the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. This year, the coach was Luke P. Phillips, a PhD candidate in philosophy. Professor Sandy Shapshay from philosophy was the advisor, and Richard Miller from the Poynter Center was the sponsor.
The competition begins with 10 regional matches in the fall that feed the national competition, held in the early spring. The Central States regional, in which the IU team competed, was Nov. 6 at Marian University in Indianapolis. IU's team won all three of its matches, but placed sixth in its aggregate score of the 20 teams competing. The top four teams go to the national competition.
IU won the national competition in 2004 and 2009 and placed third in 2010. Two members of this year's team were on the 2008-09 team and two competed on the 2009-10 team.
The Ethics Bowl competition is presented annually by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) as a method of involving students in deliberating about and seeking to resolve difficult ethical cases and controversies. The national competition, which draws together the top 32 teams from the regional rounds, will be held on March 3, 2011 in conjunction with the annual meeting of APPE.
