Report of the Committee on Ethics
for the Year Ending June 30, 2005

Membership:

Sigma Xi Ethics Advisory Committee

Dr. Stephanie Bird, Editor, Science and Engineering Ethics.

Chair: Dr. George Bugliarello, president emeritus and University Professor, Polytechnic University; former president, Sigma Xi; Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Kumar Patel, former Bell Labs division director, former UCLA Vice-Chancellor for Research, now president of Pranalytica; former president, Sigma Xi; member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Judith Swazey, founding president and senior scholar, The Acadia Institute.

Prof. Vivian Weil, director, Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology.

Prof. Caroline Whitbeck, Elmer G. Beamer-Hubet H. Schneider Professor in Ethics, Professor in Philosophy, and Director of the Online Ethics Center for Engineering and Science, Case-Western Reserve University.

The committee met by conference call in October 2004. The main purpose was to address the possibility of developing a proposal to NSF for a study of issues relating to authorship, publication practices, and grant review. The large collection of issues were suggested but also it was recognized that they must be narrowed if a proposal is to be developed that would meet the NSF criteria. Involvement of Sigma Xi chapters was seen as a definite positive feature that might separate this proposal from others.

Subsequently discussions with NSF staff led John Ahearne to conclude that much more work would be required to develop a successful proposal. This was confirmed when Ahearne served this spring as a member of the NSF panel reviewing applications for this area.

Although not in the time frame for this report, another conference call was held in August to further refine the proposal. In that call, the committee recommended concentrating on this proposal rather than developing any other Sigma Xi activities.