Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl^sm

Updated May 15, 2008

Fifteenth Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl^sm Competition

The Fifteenth Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl^sm will be March 5, 2009 in Cincinnati, OH, as a part of the 2009 APPE Annual Meeting. Colleges and universities across the United States and throughout the world who qualify in a regional bowl are invited to enter a team of undergraduate students in the national competition.

The Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (IEB) is a team competition that combines the excitement and fun of a competitive tournament with an innovative approach to education in practical and professional ethics for undergraduate students. Recognized widely by educators, the IEB has received special commendation for excellence and innovation from the American Philosophical Association, and received the 2006 American Philosophical Association/Philosophy Documentation Center's 2006 prize for Excellence and Innovation in Philosophy Programs. The format, rules, and procedures of the IEB all have been developed to model widely acknowledged best methods of reasoning in practical and professional ethics.

In the IEB, each team receives a set of cases which raise issues in practical and professional ethics in advance of the competition and prepare an analysis of each case. At the competition, a moderator poses questions, based on a case taken from that set, to teams of three to five students. Questions may concern ethical problems on wide ranging topics, such as the classroom (e.g. cheating or plagiarism), personal relationships (e.g. dating or friendship), professional ethics (e.g. engineering, law, medicine), or social and political ethics (e.g. free speech, gun control, etc.) A panel of judges may probe the teams for further justifications and evaluates answers. Rating criteria are intelligibility, focus on ethically relevant considerations, avoidance of ethical irrelevance, and deliberative thoughtfulness.

On Thursday, March 5, 2009, all teams participate in the preliminary rounds from 8:30 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. The eight teams with the highest scores will participate in the quarter-finals at 6:00 p.m., with the semi-finals at 7:15 p.m. The final round will be from 8:50-10:00 p.m. Annual Meeting attendees and members of the public are invited to attend various rounds of the competition.

To Register for the National Competition

National Championship

Qualifying teams must register for the national competition by January 16. To register, the team sponsor for a qualifying team must complete the registration form and submit it along with the $200 team registration fee to the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, 618 East Third, Bloomington, Indiana 47405. Registration and credit card information may be faxed to 812 855-3315. See the Registration Form for the required information.

To enter a team or for more information, please contact: Robert Ladenson, Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, Seigel Hall, Suite 218. 3301 S. Dearborn, Chicago, IL 60616; Phone (312) 567-3474; FAX (312)567-3016. Email Robert Ladenson. See the National Ethics Bowl web site for additional information.

The team must register for the National Ethics Bowl with Robert Ladenson and with APPE (and pay the $200 fee to APPE) in order to compete.

Ethics Bowl participants are also invited to attend the Association’s Annual Meeting March 5-8, 2009, for a special fee of $85. The Association will pay the Annual Meeting registration fee (not the Ethics Bowl registration fee) for the first 70 actively competing Ethics Bowl team members who register for the Annual Meeting, provided that they register for the Annual Meeting before January 23, 2009. See Annual Meeting for more information about the Annual Meeting.

Regional Ethics Bowl Competition

Ten regional ethics bowls are again planned for the fall of 2008. Information concerning the locations, dates, and contact persons for registration for each regional ethics bowl will be posted on the Ethics Bowl^sm web site http://ethics.iit.edu/eb/index.html shortly after Labor Day, 2008.

The Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl^sm is a tiered competition. During this fall, of 2008, ten regional ethics bowls will occure at various locations throughout the United States. The top scoring thirty-two teams in the regional ethics bowls will qualify to compete in a national ethics bowl at the 2009 APPE Annual Meeting on Thursday, March 5, 2009 in Cincinnati, OH. Teams wanting to participate in the 2008-09 National Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl^sm, must participate in one of the ten regional ethics bowls.

For more information about the Ethics Bowl competitions, visit http://ethics.iit.edu/eb/index.html or contact Robert Ladenson, ladenson@iit.edu, (312) 567-3474.

For those interested in how teams are scored or for a format to start your own Ethics Bowl^sm please feel free to download the forms used at the Fourteenth Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl^sm

Judge's Score Sheets:
Judge's Score Sheet for Team One
Judge's Score Sheet for Team Two

Association for Practical and Professional Ethics
Indiana University
618 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405-3602
Telephone (812) 855-6450; FAX (812) 856-4969
Questions pertaining to this web site can be sent to appe@indiana.edu