Nine students competed in the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics’ national Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl in Reston, Virginia, during the weekend.
The young team, which had six freshmen and only two members returning from last year’s team, survived three preliminary rounds and advanced to quarterfinal competition before being eliminated by Oklahoma Christian University.
“Any outcome that doesn’t have IU hoisting the cup is a disappointment,” IU Coach Joe Bartzel said in a press release. “But we’re a young team with a sky-high upside, and I can’t wait to see the core of this team return next year.”
The Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, unlike a debate tournament, encourages a discussion without arguments and promotes the idea of civil discourse, team captain and junior Ali Henke said.
The Ethics Bowl was created at IU with the goal of expanding the options beyond those provided in speech and debate contests, she said.
“We didn’t have what we would consider realistic and metaphysical discussions,” Henke said. “So we didn’t have these discussions that prompted greater ideas, we just had sort of these very confrontational interactions surrounding facts, figures and research and how many words you could say per minute.”
The team prepared for five to 10 hours a week for the competition, which consists of 15 different cases related to topics like minimum wage, universities’ handling of cyber security and the California water drought.
Reyan Coskun, a freshman member on the team, is a biochemistry major and focused her studies for the competition on animal rights issues.
“It was definitely interesting to be with so many other schools,” Coskun said. “There were a bunch of schools I had never even heard of, but they were really, really good.”
At the competition, the team presented the 15 cases, which they were given six to eight weeks in advance. The IU team competed against schools including Tufts University, St. Mary’s College of Maryland and Macalester College.
Coskun said she felt the team knew the case material well, but the most difficult part of the competition was maintaining endurance throughout the contest.
“You need a lot of endurance to stay awake during the whole thing because it’s a daylong competition, and you have to be on during all of it,” Coskun said.
Each round of the contest lasts an hour with two teams given the opportunity to present its case, respond to the opposing side and rebut the opposition’s response.
“We competed straight for basically three or four hours,” Coskun said.
The team advanced to the national contest after winning its regional division last fall against a group of 30 schools from Indiana, western Ohio, northern Kentucky and eastern Illinois.
The regional division in which IU competes is one of the most competitive in the nation, Henke said.
This semester’s national competition placed a heightened focus on law and policy, she added.
“The questions revolved around how these ethics relate to policy and law, which was different from normal, as we usually just come to some ethical conclusions,” Henke said.
In last year’s national competition, the IU team advanced to the semi-final round and was given the Spirit of Robert Ladenson Award, which is presented to teams that exemplify respect and civility.
Henke said her involvement in Ethics Bowl has allowed her to more easily have conversations with others who hold opposing views.
“One of the most important things, in my opinion, is I am able to have conversations with people with whom I disagree with,” Henke said. “It’s just realizing in order to figure out where people are coming from, there are a lot of different facets to conversation, and the number one thing is to not get angry but that you’re always open to having the conversation.”
