Ethics Bowl Team (l to r) Viveka Advani, Matt Flyr, Robert Bishop, Stern Christian, and Lauren Therriault

The St. Mary’s Ethics Bowl team finished 4th place, qualifying for nationals, at the Regional Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (IEB) in Clemson, South Carolina on Saturday, November 14th. A total of 18 teams competed at the regional competition, and St. Mary’s placed ahead of teams from UMD, UMBC, Georgetown, UNC-Chapel Hill, and home team Clemson, among others. This is the third time in four years that St. Mary’s has qualified for the nationals.

To compete in the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, teams must argue and defend their moral assessment of some of the most troubling and complex ethical issues facing society today. Students Viveka Advani, Matt Flyr, Robert Bishop, Stern Christian, and Lauren Therriault have been working since early September to prepare 15 cases from a wide array of topics in business and professional ethics, in personal relationships, and in social and political affairs.

To describe the St. Mary’s Ethics Bowl team’s performance at the Regional IEB, Coach Michael Taber said “[the students] were… clear and incisive, but they were also just plain nice. Judges and other teams told us how much they enjoyed being in the sessions in which we participated.”

The Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl is hosted by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE). Hundreds of students in teams across the United States and Canada compete in 10 Regional Ethics Bowl competitions each fall. Of these, just 32 teams are selected for nationals. This year, the National IEB Competition will be held in Reston, Virginia on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2016.