NCC students take first place at the Ethics Bowl

by Mia Rossi

Bethlehem, PA (04/02/2019) — Northampton Community College's (NCC) Ethics Bowl Team took home the top title at the 10th Fleming Institute for Business Ethics 2019 Ethics Bowl Competition, held at DeSales University on March 27. The NCC team, comprised of students Alexa Koorie, Devon Pfeifer and Noah Troxell beat out teams from DeSales University, Penn State Lehigh Valley, Penn State Berks, and Wilkes University to earn first place.

The NCC students were advised by business faculty members Jeanine Metzler, Wendi Achey and Meredith Koncz.

For the competition, each team was provided a business ethics case to develop and find a solution to in the weeks leading up to the competition. The team then presented their recommendations for the case to a panel of judges at the Ethics Bowl who represent various organizations and businesses. They are evaluated based on a common rubric, and four teams are selected to move on to the final round.

NCC's team had a case involving Artificial Intelligence (AI) software using algorithms to protect consumer privacy. Such software can benefit the medical industry by enabling medical treatment to advance at an exponential rate due to its strength in data analytics. The case outlined 3 scenarios that the students had to select from: sell to a large company that doesn't allow access to the product to everyone, sell to a smaller company that appropriately uses the product, or keep the product and develop the business yourself. The students had to introduce the legal and ethical quandaries involved in both the consumer fraud and medical treatment areas. Koorie, Pfeifer and Troxell chose to keep the product and develop the business themselves under the principals of ethical egoism and utilitarianism.

In the final round, the teams are given a challenge to their case that they must think critically through in order to prepare a resolution. They have approximately 40 minutes to work on the challenge before presenting to the judges.

The challenge stated that the company had to decide to sell to the smaller company. The students were able to apply their prior ethical principles in order to come up with a solution as a result of selling the company. Their ethical decision making helped them score first place!

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