Center for the Study of Ethics Mini-Grants

Past Recipients

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Pauli Alin, Technology Management

Developed a one-week module on ethics to the newly developed graduate course Tech 6420: Finance for Technical Systems. The one-week module is scheduled for the second week of the course, emphasizing the importance of ethics and ethical decision-making in technology-based organizations. The conclusion of the course will also include a final term paper with a focus on ethics in technology management to help students understand that ethics and ethical decision making should be central to the practice of technology management.

 

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Maureen Andrade, Organizational Leadership

Designed a management challenge assignment in which information is shared about ethical decision-making standards and principles and ethical dilemma paradigms. Students then work in teams to identify an ethical dilemma in their workplace and how they would resolve it by applying the principles and paradigms

 

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Rachel Arocho, Behavioral Science

Utilized research and webinar attendance to develop two new discussion boards to emphasize how the quality of research matters for the ethical impact of work as well as to challenge students to think about cultural values withing research. One discussion board asks students to identify examples of culturally-sensitive (or culturally-insensitive, as the case may be) research and in another students are tasked with outlining a responsible use of research to make a real-life decision.

 

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Marinda Ashman, Student Leadership & Success Studies

Besides integrating activities throughout the course including: case studies and reflective writing to focus on inclusion and diversity, role-playing to focus on academic integrity and cheating, thought experiments on personal beliefs and values, and videos to incite discussions on ethical topics, I have implemented an essay on the ethical issues present in the Freshman Common Read: “What the Eyes Don’t See”. My students read the book and gave small group class presentations where they gave an overview of the section, focused on what ethical issues were present in their section, made personal connections to what they have learned and how they have seen similar ethical issues in their lives or what their feelings are about the ethical issues and how their perspective has changed. 
The culminating assignment is a reflective essay given in week 13 during our Inclusion and Diversity section where students use what they have learned up to this point and address what the primary ethical issue in the common read book is and how others are harmed, what could have been done differently, and most importantly,  what would they do differently and why?   

 

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Rob Carney, English & Literature

Modern American Literature was a radical stylistic experiment, but it was also concerned with more than aesthetics. Ethics, social critique, and social justice were major concerns for these writers too, so I re-designed our Modern American Literature course to make that focus stand out. I amended the course description, made changes to the required reading and assignments, and shifted the themes of lectures and discussions in order to feature the study of ethics, the environment, and social change more.

 

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Nathan Gorelick, English & Literature

Developed two sections of “Modern Legacies” for the Honors Program concerning the ethical, literary, and political problematics of contagion and death. The course considers our present world-historical public health crisis, both obliquely and directly, according to the historical emergence of the material, conceptual, and representational containment strategies that structure contemporary mass society. Research from this project also will be incorporated into future literature courses.

 

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Natalie Grecu, Communications

Developing COMM 3570: Crisis Communication to better explore and examine ethical approaches to crisis communication as foundational to effective crisis communication. 

 

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Leandra Hernandez and Stevie Munz, Communication

Modified three courses for which the recipients co-developed the collective curricula: COMM 3040: Media Ethics, COMM 319G: Intercultural Communication Encounters, and COMM 350R: Health Communication and Culture. Courses were revised and enhanced with media ethics, bioethics, and racial ethics considerations across the course curricula. This grant especially assisted in enhancing one particularly intertwined ethics-based component of all three courses: the intersections of race/ethnicity, reproductive injustice, violence against women, and the ways in which the mass media covers such topics.

 

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Benjamin Johnson, Student Leadership & Success Studies

Modified SLSS 1400: Dimensions of Engaged Learning with additional ethical elements including an assignment based on the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (www.globalgoals.org), that includes ethical discussions. In conjunction with chair and a small-working group, explored converting the 1-credit hour course to a 3-credit hour substantial offering as well as options for making it a G, GE course, Writing Enriched, and a Service-Learning designated class in the future. Ethical content will also be used in course offerings of SLSS 1000 and SLSS 405G for online.

 

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Dianne Knight, Dental Hygiene

Designed a two-week component to DENT 3040: Dental Hygiene IV introducing the care of transgender patients in the dental office. Specific topics included knowing and understanding the medications that transgender patients might be taking and how they might interfere with some dental procedures as well as understanding and using the correct pronoun etiquette so that they feel well understood and cared for.

 

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Jessica Pauly, Communication

Revised COMM 2400: Organizational Communication by revising one full day of class to focus on CSR, Conscious Capitalism and Organizational Ethics; assigning a four-part series on Ethics Unwrapped for students to watch, plus take a quiz on the content covered; inviting Professor Englehardt to visit my class in the spring semester and talk about ethics as they relate to organizations (a 15-20 min presentation). 

 

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Khaled Shaaban, Engineering

The content of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) ethics code is integrated into the learning objectives of the Civil Engineering Capstone II course (CIVE 4820). After explaining the content of the NSPE ethics code in the class, an assignment is introduced. The assignment includes four parts: find/develop an ethical case scenario related to civil engineering, explain the dilemma, develop four alternatives to handle the dilemma, identify a preferred alternative, and discuss the reasons for this selection. After the assignment, discussions are conducted in-class to go more in-depth in these case studies.

 

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Dan Sutliff, Aviation Academics 

Modified/added four modules to AVMG-410G Global Ethical and Professional Issues in Aviation: 
Environmental issues in general aviation – focused on the adaptation of electric power for small aircraft to address the questionable ethics of continued fossil fuel consumption

  • Environmental issues in general aviation – focused on the adaptation of electric power for small aircraft to address the questionable ethics of continued fossil fuel consumption
  • Environmental issues in commercial aviation – focused on alternative fuels and eventually alternative power for transport aircraft to make commercial aviation sustainable and ethically viable 
  • Autonomous aircraft in commercial passenger operations – looking into the ethical and practical considerations of passenger transport without a pilot on board
  • Aviation’s role in the spread of COVID-19 – investigating how international aviation contributed to the pandemic and how to apply ethics to avoid repeating the mistakes made

I’m also working on three new modules for AVSC-2110 Aviation Weather:

  • The effect of extreme temperatures on aircraft operations
  • The effect of sea level rise on coastal airports
  • The increase in extreme weather events and their implications for aviation operations

All of which can be attributed to the burning of fossil fuels. I want students to think about the ethical and operational imperative of finding alternatives.