Written by Emily Leclerc
On Feb. 10 and 11, Roanoke College had the pleasure of hosting the 20th annual Wells Fargo Ethics Bowl. The Ethics bowl is organized each year by VFIC, the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges. 15 schools in Virginia are a part of VFIC and participate each year in the Ethics Bowl. VFIC provides scholarship aid to students planning to attend their 15 participant schools, as their mission entails investing in students in order to allow them to achieve their full potential. They aim to enrich the community and allow as many people as possible the chance to succeed.
Each of the member schools sent teams to the Ethics Bowl to participate in the debate competition. Each debate included a prompt that provided a scenario with an ethical issue for the teams to respond to and then the opportunity for each team to present their arguments and rebuttals. Judges listened and scored each team based on the cohesiveness of their argument and their ability to respond to the opposite team as well as questions posed by the judges. Roanoke College had two teams participating in the event.
Washington and Lee University took the winning trophy, with Virginia Wesleyan University earning the title of runner-up. Each team performed admirably and showed each school’s ability to respond to complex ethical scenarios. Students who are interested in participating in next spring’s Ethics Bowl should contact Dr. Hans Zorn (zorn@roanoke.edu) or Dr. Adkins (adkins@roanoke.edu) of RC’s Religion and Philosophy Department for more information.
