This year held many “firsts” for William Peace University as a whole, one of those “firsts” was having four WPU students compete in the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities Ethics Bowl (NCICU).
The NCICU was hosted at the NC Legislative Complex Friday, Feb. 16 and Feb. 17.
The competition entails several rounds of debates that consist of hypothetical scenarios very much connected to real world issues or issues that are taking place now. The teams that competed in the Ethics bowl consisted of four to six students from college or universities.
How to win the Ethics Bowl?
Each college or university is presented with a case or scenario and then have to present their ideas or solutions to the issue given. After, each institution has presented their ideas, they are awarded points by judges and move on to the next round.
Our WPU Ethics team competed against 23 colleges and university across North Carolina, and although they did well, they fell short of winning.
The Ethics Bowl team has been preparing for the event since October of this year. Dr. Scott McElreath, who teaches all of the ethics classes at WPU leads the team and helped them prepare. Dr. Scott personally hand-picked the students for the team.
Extra Benefit of being a part of the team?
The four students who participated are each earning a one-credit hour as a course for their participation in the event.
Each of the team members had a different major and so had different outlooks on different situations.
Beatrice Galdamez-Reyes, a pre-law and global studies major, graduating in 2019, was one of the Ethics Bowl team members.
“From what we understood the competition was framed in that we had to present our answer in the best way possible supported by ethics,” said Galdamez-Reyes. “We decided to come up with our own values and principles, which work really well for our team. Dr. Scott did a really great job on helping us develop an easy way to do that in a limited amount of time.”
Galdamez-Reyes, the only junior on the team, is sad to see all of her teammates leave. With that being said, there will be openings for next year’s Ethics Bowl team if you are interested and have a passion for ethics.
“The ethics bowl was an experience that I will definitely never forget,” said Galdamez-Reyes.