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Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

Ethics Prizes

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2023 Markkula Prize winner, Vicky Pham is congratulated by Ethics Center Executive Director Don Heider and Advisory Board member Kristi Bowers.

Winner of the 2023 Markkula Prize Vicky Pham ’23 with Kristi Markkula Bowers and Don Heider

The Ethics Center honors students who have shown leadership in programming or research in Applied Ethics.

Markkula Prize

Named in honor of Center benefactor A.C. "Mike" Markkula Jr., the award goes to a graduating senior who has shown outstanding commitment to ethics, either through creating programs for fellow students or completing significant research in the field.

Engineering Ethics Prize

Tied to the senior design project required of students in the School of Engineering, the prize rewards the team that submits the best analysis of the ethical problems related to engineering design.

Applying for the Engineering Ethics Prize

The Santa Clara University Engineering Ethics Prize focuses on the analysis of ethical problems related to engineering design. It is tied to the senior project design process in which every graduating senior in the School of Engineering participates.

The prize is to be awarded for work that is already part of the Senior Design Project: the ethical analysis that is a required component of each project. Thus students who wish to compete for the prize do not need to launch out in a direction that they would not otherwise have to take in the course of completing their Senior Design Project. They just need to have their team pay special attention to the component of the project requiring ethical analysis.

The prize is awarded for the best ethical analysis, which will be judged on the following criteria:

  1. How well it explains the ethical justification for the project
  2. How well it recognizes and identifies the significant ethical issues embedded in and associated with the project
  3. How well it provides cogent, well-substantiated reasons for the decisions made and actions taken in the course of the project
  4. How well it draws on various ethics resources such as:
    1. The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Framework for Thinking Ethically
    2. The SCU Engineering Handbook: Issues in the Profession of Engineering, Version 1.1, particularly Chapter 6: Ethics
    3. The Ethics and the Senior Design Project: A Guide booklet
    4. The relevant engineering codes of ethics for each discipline (e.g., IEEE, ASME, NSPE, ACM, etc.)
    5.  Additional ethical concepts and approaches, such as deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, casuistry, the common good, social justice, etc.

For more information and for questions about the prize, please contact Brian Green.