Citizen-Scientists as Agents of Change: Training the Trainer in the Ethics of Science and Technology

该奖项由社会与经济科学系的科学与工程伦理教育项目颁发，旨在表彰圣母大学现有的研究伦理培训机会。该项目由数学和物理科学理事会多学科活动办公室全额资助。每年将选出15名学生参加科学技术伦理方面的高级培训，重点是“大局”或“宏观伦理”问题。他们的训练从为期一周的公民科学家伦理训练营开始，并在学年剩余的时间里通过强制性的、后续的、在职的项目得到加强。参加培训师计划的学生将把他们学到的东西带回他们的实验室，教室，专业协会，以及他们以后的职业生涯中，通过他们的行动，他们将成为榜样。美德伦理传统是该项目的理论基础，将在为期一周的公民-科学家伦理训练营中教授，必要时将在双月的“棕色包”课程中重新讨论。建立在美德作为习惯的观念之上，这是美德伦理传统的核心，以及道德学习和道德决策是基于模范道德行为的建模的核心思想，该计划更强调个人作为变革推动者的实践，而不是道德原则。这个项目期望培养科学和工程研究生，他们将成为道德参与的公民科学家的典范。教育学和道德在这个框架内结合在一起，作为培养新学者、科学家和工程师的共同任务的各个方面，他们的生活中道德参与的习惯成为他们作为科学家和工程师工作的一个组成部分。这个项目的首要目标是创建变革的代理人，他们将自己作为培训师。研究生将通过与同事、学生、专业人士、地方和国家社区合作的在职项目向他人传达他们所学到的知识。他们也将有充分的机会通过已经建立的校园项目在校内和校外传播他们的知识。在研究生院专业发展团队、心理学系同事和社会研究中心的帮助下，赖利中心将对项目内的学生进行全面评估。调查将衡量每个学生在参与项目时的学习情况，并收集参与者对项目感知价值的反馈。该项目旨在通过培养科学家和工程师，培养新一代的学生研究人员和思想领袖，他们通过习惯来考虑他们工作的道德方面。这些“变革的推动者”将成为他们未来的学生和同行的道德参与典范。这是一句古老的谚语，一个人永远不会像教给别人一样学好一件事。任何一位老师都知道，这个概念中有一个真理的核心，这也是这个项目的重要组成部分。参加该项目的研究生不仅将接受科学和工程伦理方面的培训，而且还将学习如何培训他人。

This award by the Ethics Education in Science and Engineering program in the Division of Social and Economic Sciences is for building upon existing research ethics training opportunities at the University of Notre Dame. This project is fully funded by the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate. A select group of fifteen students per year will have the opportunity for advanced training in the ethics of science and technology with a focus on 'big picture' or 'macro-ethics' issues. Their training starts with an intensive, one-week citizen-scientist ethics boot camp, and is reinforced for the remainder of the academic year with mandatory, follow-on, in-service projects. The students who participate in this train-the-trainer program will take what they learn back into their laboratories, classrooms, professional associations, and on into their own later careers, and through their actions they will serve as models. The virtue ethics tradition is the theoretical basis informing the program and will be taught during the one-week citizen-scientist ethics boot camp and revisited when necessary at bi-monthly brown bag sessions. Building upon the notion of virtue as habit that is central to the virtue ethics tradition, and upon the core idea that ethical learning and ethical decision making are based upon modeling the actions of exemplary moral agents, the program puts more emphasis on the practice of individuals as change agents than on the principles of ethics. This project is expected to produce science and engineering graduate students who will be models of the ethically engaged citizen-scientist. Pedagogy and morality come together within this framework as aspects of a common task of training new scholars, scientists, and engineers in whose lives habits of ethical engagement become an integral part of their work as scientists and engineers.The overarching goal of this project is to create Agents of Change who will serve as trainers themselves. The graduate students will convey what they have learned to others through in-service projects that engage their colleagues, students, and professional, local, and national communities. They will also have ample opportunities to disseminate their learning both on- and off-campus through already established campus programs as well. The Reilly Center 'with help from the Graduate School's Professional Development team, colleagues in the Department of Psychology, and the Center for Social Research' will conduct thorough assessments of the students within the program. Surveys will measure each student's learning while they participate in the program as well as collect feedback from participants on the program's perceived value. This project aims to produce a new generation of student researchers and thought leaders by creating scientists and engineers who, through habit, consider the ethical aspects of their work. These 'agents of change' will become models of ethics engagement for their own future students and professional peers. It is an old saw that one never learns something as well as when one teaches it to others. There is a kernel of truth in that notion, as any teacher knows, and it is an important part of this project. The graduate students who participate in this program will not only receive training in the ethics of science and engineering but they will also learn how to train others.