The University of Alabama at Birmingham’s senior Ethics Bowl team won first place at the Southeast Regional eighth annual Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl competition on Saturday. They advance to the 18th Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl in Cincinnati on March 1, 2012.
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| UAB senior Ethics Bowl Team |
The teams debated the ethics of home-schooling, sex in advertising, dubious university recruiting, crisis in funding state pensions and artificial inflation of grades in law schools among other topics. UAB defeated defending national champion University of Central Florida and its rival, Eckerd College, a previous national champion. In January, UAB will get 15 new cases to prepare for the national championship tournament.
“I have never been more proud of UAB students,” says Gregory Pence, Ph.D., a philosophy professor in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences who leads UAB’s teams and coached its 2010 national championship team. A second UAB team of freshmen also competed this weekend and finished ninth of 24.
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| UAB freshman Ethics Bowl Team |
Members on both teams are students in the UAB Early Medical Acceptance Program that Pence says attracts some of the best students in the nation. His group worked as many as 10 hours a week preparing cases for two months, he says.
Members of the senior team are Rachael Rosales, a junior from Athens, Ga.; Chris Graves, a senior from Gadsden, Ala.; Mallick Hossain, a junior from Rainbow City, Ala.; Maja Mzombwe, a sophomore from Columbus, Miss.; and Kevin Jiang, a sophomore from Mountain Brook, Ala.
The freshman team are all Alabamians and included Ali Simpson, Vestavia Hills; Sejuti Paul, Florence; Ameen Barghi, Shelby County; Anjali Wagle, Gadsden; Kevin Shrestha, Birmingham; and student coach, Aditi Jani, sophomore, Pelham.