May Newsletter: Michigan champions win a trophy at the National High School Ethics Bowl!
May 5, 2016
Michigan Turns Heads at Nationals! Cheers for the Ann Arbor Greenhills School Ethics Bowl team for its impressive showing at April's National High School Bowl. The team of sophomores and juniors bested twenty other state champions to bring home the 4th place trophy and $4,000 prize for the school. The photo shows the winning teamwith head coach and Greenhills faculty member Mark Randolph and philosopher coach Kevin Craven from U-M Philosophy Outreach. We like to think the rigorous competition the Greenhills champions faced at February's Michigan Bowl helped prepare them in their audacious and successful quest. That said, give them their due. The case studies they argued were complex and difficult. Indeed, the locale of the competition, held annually in North Carolina, turned into a real time case study. A week before the Bowl, rocker Bruce Springsteen announced a concert boycott of the state after passage of a controversial state bill that discriminates against LGBT individuals. Team members and their coaches discussed the ethics of attending. In determining to go, they also committed to writing a letter of dissent to NC governor McCrory.
We applaud the Greenhills team for their win. We respect the Greenhills team even more for taking an ethical stand.
The first ever Ypsilanti Slam winners! EITHER thinking about how to answer the Big Ethical Questions OR what to do with the Golden, Winged Sandal they have just won!
Please congratulate Auckland University Essex Ball aka the Oakland University Ethics Bowl Slammers. To get their reactions and others attending the Slam, Creative Voice offers a first ever review. About the winners' team name? A dinner reservation mix-up. The other team names were evenly matched mix-ups: The HypoEthicals, No Kant Test and Mythin' Around. All made a better name for themselves by the evening's end.
So many ethics events to choose from. It is sometimes hard to know which direction to take. One direction we can recommend:
Irrational, the new musical at the Theatre Nova. Set in ancient Greece, starring the philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras…who and what could go wrong?
Did you know that Ann Arbor is an epicenter for the world's most famous ethics scholars? Think Peter Railton, Elizabeth Anderson, Sarah Buss, Daniel Jacobson...not to mention all the amazing graduate student/Bowl coaches from U-M Philosophy Outreach. A few more scholars will be in town when Christine Korsgaard and Simon Blackburn visit to toast world famous ethics scholar extraordinaire U-M professor Allan Gibbard. Join the Gibbardfest!
