On Saturday, February 20, 2021, five members of Chowan University’s Ethics Team participated in the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities’ (NCICU) 10th Annual Ethics Bowl Competition. The team, comprised of seniors Grace Arredondo and Ryan Martin, junior Christopher Brooks, sophomore Alec Jackson, and freshman Dawson Cox, was led by the recently retired E. Lee Oliver Fagan Distinguished Professor of Bible, Dr. J. Brabban, and Dr. Keith Reich Chair, Department of Religion and Associate Professor of Religion. 

For the past nine years, the NCICU Ethics Bowl was a two-day event held in Raleigh, NC and conducted in a competition format where competing teams were randomly assigned an opponent and a corresponding case to debate in front of NCICU judges, moderators, and distinguished guests. Chowan is widely known as having impressive success over the past few years, nearly winning the entire competition on two separate occasions. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NCICU decided to make this year’s event a virtual discussion forum among the participating schools instead of an in-person competition. Although it might have been easier to simply cancel this year’s event, the NCICU wanted to give its best effort to safely provide this much-anticipated opportunity for students to fellowship and discuss relevantly important current events. NCICU’s mission is to support, represent and advocate for North Carolina’s 36 private colleges and universities. “The Ethics Bowl is both an academically challenging and a personally rewarding experience that our students look forward to each year,” stated NCICU president Hope Williams. “Our Campus Coordinators were committed to holding the event this year even though it will be a very different format than in the past.”

The topic for this year’s event was exploring Ethics in a Pandemic. The selected cases asked students to examine and discuss the ethical responsibilities regarding vaccinations and K-12 students, respectively. Although this year’s event was not a competition, Chowan received exceptionally high praise from the overseeing judges and moderators present. The remarks praised the team of five for their position’s uniformity and structure, as well as the calm assertiveness with which the team approached daunting questions and situations. Including Chowan, the following 15 colleges and universities participated in this year’s event: Belmont Abbey College, Catawba College, Gardner-Webb University, High Point University, Johnson C. Smith University, Mars Hill University, Meredith College, Montreat College, N.C. Wesleyan College, Pfeiffer University, Saint Augustine’s University, Salem College, University of Mount Olive, William Peace University, and Wingate University.