1) Cover Sheet

1) Cover Sheet

Select one:

X Project Grant

___ Core and Core Area Grant

___ Seed Grant

___ Dissemination Grant

Name: Wendy Barger Dept./Program: Journalism/Mass Communication

Mail # _4372 Phone # _2-5253_ E-mail: _wnbarger@stthomas.edu

The date of my initial full-time employment at UST was: September 2003 and the status of my present employment (tenured, tenure-track, limited term, adjunct) at UST is: tenure-track.

1. Title of proposed project: Media Ethics Bowl

2. Description of project suitable for use in publicity and reporting to a general audience (not to exceed 50 words; avoid use of jargon):

The project develops cases to adapt the national Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl into a competition for all Journalism and Mass Communication seniors. Student teams will analyze media ethics cases and prepare arguments, which are then presented during the debate-style competition. Participation in the bowl fosters active learning and critical thinking skills.

3. Intended start date: _September 8, 2004__

Project duration (in months): 9 months

4. Total amount requested: $1500

5. Have you previously received 2002-05 Bush Grant funds? _X Yes ___ No

If yes, please describe: I have been a faculty mentor for a Collaborative Inquiry Grant (Spring 2004) and a Young Scholars Grant (Summer 2004).

2) Budget Format page for:

Project Grants (maximum: $1,500) for curriculum development, faculty partnerships

Core and Core Area Grants (maximum amount in the case of conference attendance is $14,400 per team; maximum for retreats and meetings is $6,150 per team).

Seed Grants (maximum: $250 for <$10,000 external request; $500 for >$10,000 request)

Dissemination Grants (maximum: $1,000/individual, to a maximum of $3,000/team; $5,000 total available for departmental requests)

· Applicants are expected to provide reasonably detailed estimates of all expenses.

· Capital equipment (>$500) may not be purchased with these funds.

· The Proposal Narrative should give reviewers adequate justification for general categories of expenses. Detailed expenses and other calculations must be provided in a Budget Explanation.

· Other sources of funding should be detailed in a Budget Explanation, as applicable:

· Indicate whether or not you have applied for internal or external funding of this project in addition to UST’s Bush Foundation grant. As appropriate, list names of funding programs, both internal and external, and specify which expenses those programs are expected to cover. This should also be reflected on the Budget form and in supporting documentation (such as a letter of commitment).

· If currently funded by any UST Bush Foundation grants, list the grant type, year of award, and project title of each grant received.

BUDGET ITEM Grant Request Other Funding Total

1. Personnel / Director Stipend $1000_______ 0 ___________$1000

2. Travel expenses ____0___________0______________0_

a. Lodging ____0___________0______________0_

b. Transportation ____0___________0______________0_

c. Meals ____0___________0______________0_

d. Conference Fee ____0___________0______________0_

e. Other (give detail) ____0___________0______________0_

3. Supplies, e.g. books

and refreshments _250________ _0_____________ 250_

4. Duplicating, postage, telephone_100_________ 0_____________ 100_

5. Other (provide detail) _150_________ 0_____________ 150_

awards for winning teams and thank you tokens for judges

TOTAL REQUESTED: $1500__________0____________$1500

3) Grant Application Checklist

Please complete this checklist and submit with your application, which is due by 5:00 p.m. on the following dates:

For work beginning in: Due Notification Date

Summer April 1 June 1

Fall July 15 August 1

J Term October 1 November 1

Spring November 1 December 1

Submit the application to: Bush Grant, Mail # JRC 432.

Check that your application package contains eight complete, collated copies of the following:

X A. Cover Sheet

X B. Proposal Narrative

X C. Budget Format page and Budget Explanation (not required for Seed

Grants)

X D. Copies of supporting documentation, if applicable

X E. Two-page vitae (not required for Core and Core Area Grants)

X F. Grant Application Checklist (this sheet, signed and dated)

Other items to acknowledge:

X G. Final reports

I do not have any final reports due for previous UST Bush grants.

X H. Protection of Human Subjects of Research

I understand that if my research will involve human subjects, I must seek approval from UST's Institutional Review Board for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (IRB) before beginning the project. See the IRB website for information: http://www.stthomas.edu/irb

X I. Final Report

Within three months of my project’s completion date, I agree to submit to Program Coordinator Vanca Shrunk (c/o Bush Grant Mail # JRC 432, idschrunk@stthomas.edu, 2-5740) the following: 1) a project evaluation report, 2) an accounting of funds spent, and 3) assessment results. I understand that submission of this final report is a prerequisite for any future funding from UST’s Bush grant for Collaborative Inquiry.

Applicant Signature:_____________________________________________

Date:____________

Media Ethics Bowl: Project Narrative

Abstract. The project develops cases to adapt the national Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl into a competition for all Journalism and Mass Communication seniors. Student teams will analyze media ethics cases and prepare arguments, which are then presented during the debate-style competition. Participation in the bowl fosters active learning and critical thinking skills.

Project Rationale. All students majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of St. Thomas take the department’s capstone Media Ethics course (JOUR 480) in their final semester. The course is designed to provoke students’ critical thinking capacities, stimulate their moral imaginations and inspire them to consider seriously the role that media ethics plays in everyone’s life – not only those who will work as media practitioners. As media scholar James Carey argued, the experience of the media of communication is one of the few domains shared by all members of modern society.[1] The media – and media practitioners – carry with them tremendous responsibilities as a forum through which citizens become educated about and act on issues of social concern.

During the media ethics course, my students and I consider these responsibilities, question how well the media are meeting them, and propose ideas about how the media can become more ethical. To do this, we explore important theoretical foundations of moral philosophy (ethics) and some of the issues that media professionals typically confront. We also pause to think about the goals of media professions such as journalism, public relations and advertising and to question whether the long-standing conventions of these professions help achieve these goals. Last but certainly not least, the course aims to give students tools that will help them use their own power responsibly – help them make sound moral judgments when they face inevitable ethical dilemmas as media practitioners.

Most teachers of applied ethics use cases to help students develop decision-making skills, and media ethics textbooks are full of these cases. There are a variety of ways to work with the cases from having students simply read or write about them to incorporating small or large group discussions around them. The first two methods are largely reflective, which is useful. But the best learning is an active process that involves not only reflection but also discourse. In fact, John Dewey viewed argument as the essence of education. Christopher Lash explained Dewey this way: “It is only by subjecting our preferences and projects to the test of debate that we come to understand what we know and what we still need to learn.”[2]

Through my affiliation with the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE), I have been introduced to the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, a national competition of ethical reasoning and a unique way of using cases to, first, develop students’ ethical decision making skills and, second, submit their preferences to the test of debate.[3] With a Bush Project Grant, I would like adapt the Ethics Bowl into a competition for approximately 45 students in all three Spring 2005 sections of UST’s Media Ethics course.

Goals and Objectives. The Media Ethics Bowl has several goals:

· Expose students to “real-world” ethical dilemmas faced by media practitioners

· Provide students the opportunity to utilize several decision-making tools introduced in class

· Provide students the opportunity to apply moral philosophy and other theoretical perspectives to real dilemmas

· Encourage students to work through ethical dilemmas with others (their teammates) in a discursive environment that fosters higher-order thinking

· Encourage students to come to a reasoned decision in a situation where there is no clear-cut “right” or “wrong” answer

· Provide students the opportunity to publicly articulate and defend their critical analyses through presenting their decisions, providing their best justifications for those decisions and responding to others who may disagree

I often tell my students that in questions of ethics, there are rarely right and wrong answers, but there are better and worse answers. The first challenge in getting to the “better” answers is to go through some kind of systematic process that ensures all harms and benefits have been considered. The second challenge is realizing that, in most cases, some harm will come regardless of the decision. Once a decision is made, the challenge moves to justifying the decision with ethically sound reasons. The Ethics Bowl covers each of these challenges.

Because the Ethics Bowl is a competition, part of the assessment comes immediately; teams are assessed by a panel of judges, who consider the clarity and intelligibility of the team’s argument, its focus on ethically relevant factors and its awareness and consideration of differing viewpoints. A second part of the assessment comes at the end of the year when our department gives oral ethics exams to a portion of graduating seniors. I piloted a small-scale Ethics Bowl in my classes during Spring 2004, and several of my students took the oral exam. Overall, students in this year’s class performed better than their predecessors. Of course, at this point, we can say only anecdotally that the Ethics Bowl contributed to the higher scores, but it makes sense that having the experience of the Ethics Bowl prepares students for discussing cases in the oral exam.

Project Activities. The project involves essentially two phases. The first phase takes place in Fall 2004 and covers the research and writing of approximately 12 cases for the Ethics Bowl. While there is never a shortage of current ethical dilemmas in the media, it does take time to prepare cases for the Ethics Bowl. The national bowl covers cases from a wide range of topics (personal ethics, professional ethics, social and political ethics, etc.), so I cannot simply use cases from that competition. Instead, I will need to develop cases specific to media ethics, including cases in journalism, advertising, public relations, the entertainment media, and the Internet.[4]

The second phase of the project is coordinating the Ethics Bowl itself. This includes organizing facilities, recruiting and training judges, managing the logistics of getting approximately 12 teams (45 students) through the competition, preparing prizes, and assessing the event. This phase will begin in January 2005 and run through the end of Spring 2005.

Project Preparation. In addition to serving as a judge for three years at APPE’s Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, I also have experience with my in-class Ethics Bowl. This “pilot study” proved a big hit with students and an effective teaching tool.[5] This first attempt gave me a good idea of what works well to adapt from the national competition (the general format) and what needs to be revised and developed specifically for the Media Ethics Bowl (cases, judging criteria and scoring system).

Evaluation. At the end of the Media Ethics Bowl, students will complete an evaluation of the competition, which will ask them to rate the extent to which they felt prepared for the Ethics Bowl, the applicability of the cases themselves, their experiences working with teammates, the usefulness of the Ethics Bowl for other class activities, and the perceived pertinence of the competition to their future (and current) professional lives. In addition to this evaluation, students will have the opportunity to comment on their end-of-the-semester teaching evaluations.

Dissemination. There are a number of possibilities for disseminating the work of the Media Ethics Bowl beyond my own department. First, members of the campus community will be invited to watch the competition and in some cases serve as judges. Secondly, as the Ethics Bowl gains momentum on campus, it is possible to expand the competition to a campus-wide event reaching across the disciplines. From there, St. Thomas could consider fielding a team for the Intercollegiate Bowl. In addition, I plan to develop a Web site that includes the format, cases, judging criteria, etc. for the Ethics Bowl. This site will be used by JOUR 480 students in their preparation for the competition and can also be shared with journalism departments from other campuses that are interested in hosting a bowl of their own. Finally, there are opportunities to share my experiences with the Ethics Bowl through a panel at the annual APPE meeting and/or through the newsletter of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication-Media Ethics Division, to which I contribute regularly as a division officer.

Notes: