Overview
Ethics Bowl is a competition put on by the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (NCICU) and was held on Feb. 8-9. This year the topic was “Ethics in the Environment.”
The event occurred in downtown Raleigh at the Legislative Building with a beautiful dinner at the North Carolina Museum of History after the first day of the competition.
The debate is set up with four students from one school competing against four students from another school. The first four rounds have three judges and one mediator and the final rounds have five judges and one mediator.
When each school signs up for Ethics Bowl, the coach receives the 10 possible cases. One of the cases is read before each round and each team is allowed to give a five minute response about their team opinion about the case. Following each teams response, a member of the team can ask the opposing team a question. After that, the team’s answer the question and give their final statements.
William Peace University at the NCICU Ethics Bowl
From Hannah Ericksen’s Personal Account
A few words to recap the Ethics Bowl are intense, fun, and competitive. We began practicing for the competition in October. When we began the cases were just a page of words with no meaning, but four months later it became much more.
In the four months of preparation the team all became closer as well as gained the same passion about the topic. Cases ranged from information about Nuclear Energy, the Paris Treaty Climate Agreement’s current situation, how sunscreen affects the ecosystem, and so much more real world issues.
This was WPU’s second year competing and we had big shoes to fill from last years group. We did not make it to the semi-finals, but we were very competitive in every round.
I want to take this time to formally thank Dr. Scott for all he did to help us prepare, for the time he spent helping all of us, and the encouraging words he always had. I appreciate all you did for us.
Team: Breanna Cary, Mary Kubeny, Damani Toudle, Angela Gamble, Beatrice Galdamez-Reyes, and Hannah Ericksen
Coach: Dr. Scott McElreath