Instead of asking how to apply technology in classes at the Polytechnic campus, students may begin to ask what the ethical ramifications of those applications may be.
The Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics plans to hire six fellows for the Polytechnic campus this spring to develop programs and courses in ethics next fall. Six more fellows will be hired the next spring.
The Lincoln Center is a unit of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences that focuses on improving ethical awareness and understanding at ASU and in the community.
"We want our students, in whatever profession, to appreciate the ethical standards of their profession," said Joseph Herkert, a Lincoln associate professor who is directing the project at the Polytechnic campus. "We want them to recognize ethical issues and to think about ethical problems and what they might do if they encounter problems."
The new hires for the Lincoln Center will have the tasks of developing and redesigning courses to include a substantive ethics component, Herkert said.
As part of the project, the Lincoln fellows will broaden the "environment where all of our students, regardless of [area of study], come in contact with these [ethical] issues," Herkert said.
He added that it is important for students to understand the ethical dilemmas that they might encounter in their future careers, instead of confining the discussion of ethics to just ethics courses.
Many professors would "like to put these [ethical] materials into their courses but need help," he said, adding that a facet of the Polytechnic project will involve educating professors in various fields of ethics.
He said the plan is to "recruit faculty who want to do this and help them achieve these goals."
By focusing on incorporating ethical values into courses not focused specifically on ethics, the program will allow "more opportunities for students in the courses in their major, and also in general education courses, to come across ethical issues in the context of what they're studying," he added.
Uven Chong, a mechanical engineering and economics senior, is part of The Triple Helix, a global forum for science in society. The Triple Helix at ASU is sponsored by the Lincoln Center.
Chong said ethical standards today are often not equipped to deal with new technology, such as choosing the gender of children before they are born.
"Now people are being forced to decide between these issues," Chong said. "As technology progresses into a new modern place, a lot of times the ethics don't progress with it."
Reach the reporter at: indra.ekmanis@asu.edu
