Tuesday, September 27, 2016

You are invited to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions!


You are invited to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the
Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions!
Established in 1976, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions is one of the oldest ethics centers in the country. The Ethics Center helped pioneer the integration of ethics education in the science and engineering disciplines. Today, the Ethics Center addresses topics such as neuro- and bioethics, responsible research and innovation in science and technology, ethical issues in the professions, and the role of ethics codes in society.
We welcome you to join us in celebrating the rich history of the Ethics Center on its 40th anniversary as we look toward the future!
Anniversary Celebration Details
Date: Thursday, October 13, 2016
Time: 5-6:30 p.m.
Location: McCormick Tribune Campus Center (MTCC) Ballroom
3201 South State Street
Chicago, IL 60616
Please contact Kelly Laas with any questions about the event. We look forward to seeing you there!


The Ethics Center celebration will be preceded by the 2nd annual Lewis College Roundtable, Digital Discourse and Civil Society. Scholars from the fields of digital ethics, social psychology, gaming, and communications will explore what constitutes a civil society in the digital age.
How can we promote ethical behavior and social good in the digital space? Has the internet fostered more extreme viewpoints on controversial issues? Does the perceived anonymity in the digital space increase bullying and toxicity in online communities? Are the rules of etiquette and civility different online? 
The Roundtable will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the MTCC McCloska Auditorium.  For more information, please visit the Lewis College Roundtable website.



ethics.iit.edu   |    312.567.3017   |   csep@iit.edu

Monday, September 12, 2016

Center receives $335,800 from National Science Foundation for developing ethical cultures in STEM research

The Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP) at Illinois Institute of Technology has been awarded a three-year, $335,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project focused on developing ethical cultures in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) research. Under the guidance of the project’s principal investigator Elisabeth Hildt, director of CSEP and Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities, and the Co-PIs Kelly Laas, CSEP’s librarian, Eric Brey, Duchossois Leadership Professor and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and Christine Miller, Clinical Associate Professor of Innovation at Stuart School of Business, Illinois Tech graduate students in STEM fields will develop discipline and laboratory-specific ethical guidelines aimed at providing support in handling ethical issues important to the lab environments in which they work. The goal of this project is to positively influence researchers’ understanding of ethical research and practice issues, enhance their handling of these issues, and promote an ethical culture in their respective labs and across campus.

  “With this project we plan to develop a broadly applicable module that helps cultivate an ethical culture in experimental labs at IIT and elsewhere,” says Elisabeth Hildt.

The project entitled, “A Bottom-Up Approach to Building a Culture of Responsible Research and Practice in STEM,” focuses on the creation of ethics codes-based guidelines for STEM researchers. Starting from discipline-specific codes of ethics, available through CSEP’s Ethics Codes Collection (graduate students in four different STEM departments at Illinois Tech will develop guidelines on responsible conduct of research (RCR)-related issues they consider of relevance to their laboratory practice. The process of developing these guiding principles will cultivate a high level of ownership in participating students, and help make the guidelines an integral part of the orientation of new lab members.


This is a highly collaborative project with involvement from Armour College’s Departments of Biomedical Engineering (Eric Brey) and Chemical and Biological Engineering (Sohail Murad), and the College of Science’s Departments of Physics (Grant Bunker) and Biology (Andrew Howard) on this project.