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

这一奖项由社会和经济科学部的科学和工程伦理教育项目颁发，以表彰圣母大学现有的研究伦理培训机会。该项目由数学和自然科学局多学科活动办公室全额资助。每年由15名学生组成的精选小组将有机会接受科学技术伦理方面的高级培训，重点是“大图景”或“宏观伦理”问题。他们的培训从为期一周的公民-科学家伦理新兵训练营开始，并在本学年剩余的时间里通过强制性的、后续的、在职的项目来加强。参加培训师培训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，并进入他们以后的职业生涯，通过他们的行动，他们将成为模范。美德伦理传统是指导该计划的理论基础，将在为期一周的公民-科学家伦理新兵训练营中教授，并在必要时在双月一次的黄包会议上重新讨论。该计划以美德作为习惯的概念为基础，以美德伦理传统的核心理念为基础，并基于伦理学习和伦理决策是基于模范道德行为的核心理念，该计划更强调个人作为变革推动者的实践，而不是伦理原则。该项目预计将培养出科学和工程研究生，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，作为共同任务的一部分，培训新的学者、科学家和工程师，在他们的生活中，伦理参与的习惯成为他们作为科学家和工程师工作的组成部分。这个项目的总体目标是创造变革的推动者，他们自己将充当培训者。研究生将通过在职项目将他们所学到的知识传达给其他人，这些项目吸引了他们的同事、学生以及专业、地方和国家社区的参与。他们还将有足够的机会通过已经建立的校园项目在校内外传播他们的学习。赖利中心将在研究生院专业发展团队、心理系同事和社会研究中心的帮助下，对该项目中的学生进行彻底的评估。调查将衡量每个学生在参与该项目时的学习情况，并收集参与者对该项目感知价值的反馈。这个项目旨在通过培养科学家和工程师来培养新一代学生研究人员和思想领袖，这些科学家和工程师习惯于考虑他们工作的伦理方面。这些“变革的推动者”将成为他们未来学生和专业同龄人参与道德规范的典范。一个人永远不会学到像教给别人一样好的东西，这是一句老话。正如任何教师都知道的那样，这一概念中有一个核心的真理，它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，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.