The Ethics Debate team took third place in the Oklahoma Statewide Student Ethics Challenge last month.
The Ethics Challenge is a competition in which students debate ethical cases on a variety of socially relevant topics. The cases for this tournament included voting rights for felons, kosher and halal practices, the use of genealogy websites in crime investigations, and fake news. Five OCU Ethics Debate team members attended the competition.
Elizabeth Edem, economics senior, said the state tournament changed this year from the previous year. Originally, the two teams with the most points would compete for first and second place, with the top two teams being from the same school. This year, they had two teams from two different schools, OCU being one of them, compete for second place.
“It was pretty exciting because what usually happens is they have the first and the second team debate for first,” Edem said. “We had a really crazy straight set of wins that we didn’t really see coming because we had a lot of new people, and then they were like, ‘for the first time, we’re going to have two different teams fight for second.’”
Edem said debating with other teams allows her to understand different ethical frameworks. She said Oklahoma Christian University debated in a way she had never seen before.
“They had these really interesting debates about feminist virtue ethics, and we were like ‘wait, what is this?’ No one’s used that ethical framework before,” she said. “It was still really interesting to see just how different their ethical frameworks were.”
Hannah Cozart, acting sophomore and team co-captain, said the diversity of majors on the team helps build their cases.
“It’s always been cool to provide a different perspective to people who are very much in their marketing, their economics, their poli sci, but here’s what an actor thinks,” Cozart said.
Cozart said her acting experience helps to improve the team’s presentation of their cases.
“I definitely try to help the team with the presentational aspect of it and speaking clearly and our diction and the optics of how we look as a team,” she said. “Because I’d like to think I’m well-spoken, being an actor.”
The team’s next tournament, the Texas Region Ethics Bowl, will be Nov. 10 in San Antonio. Four OCU students will compete. Dr. James Guzak, professor of management and coach of the Ethics team, said if the team places in this tournament, they will proceed to the national tournament in Baltimore.
“If we place in the regionals, first, second, third, or fourth, we’ll have an invitation to the national competition,” Guzak said. “We went there last year, it was in Chicago, and had a great time.”
Guzak said the team prepares for these tournament primarily on their own.
“It’s primarily them doing it themselves,” Guzak said. “We’re not over them, cracking a whip saying, ‘do this’ or ‘do that.’ We’re making suggestions and we’re pushing them, but it’s not one of these things where we have to do a lot of cajoling or prodding.”
Guzak said he is proud of the team and their work.
“The kids are really interested in what they were doing. They like being able to grapple with those issues and topics,” Guzak said. “Those guys did it themselves, working together, on their own, without very much supervision from us at all. That’s to their credit.”
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