Cabrillo College Ethics Bowl Team

Only Community College Team to Qualify for National Championships

Cabrillo College announced that its Ethics Bowl team finished seventh overall in the national championship of the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl held in Chicago at the end of February. They missed qualifying for the semi-final match by only two points!

Sponsored by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl (IEB) holds regional and national competitions involving hundreds of college and university students across North America. Requirements for success in the IEB include strong analytical skills, intensive research, tight teamwork and the ability to think quickly.

In December of 2017, the Cabrillo team placed second in the California regional competition, making them the only Community College team to qualify in an open regional competition for the National Championship. In the semi-final round, the Cabrillo College Ethics Bowl team defeated the team from Stanford University. In the final round of the regional competition they narrowly finished behind Arizona State University (ASU) for 2nd place. This qualified the team to advance to the National Championship.

“This is a remarkable success, and we are again so proud of our Ethics Bowl team,” said Claudia Close, Cabrillo Philosophy Instructor and Ethics Bowl Team Faculty Coach. “The success becomes even more remarkable when one notes that Cabrillo finished higher than both the team from Stanford and the West Point team, who won the National Championship last year.”

In Last years Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl, Cabrillo’s team became the first community college team in the Bowl’s 21-year history to win a regional competition against four-year colleges and universities advancing to the National competition in Dallas, Texas.

This year’s Cabrillo team members include: Ella Carroll, Jane Tobias, Cameron Ellis, Liv Johansson and Connor DeGraff. The Cabrillo Ethics Bowl team is coached by Cabrillo Philosophy Department faculty Nancy Brown and Claudia Close.

There are11 Regional competitions throughout the United States and Canada in which Student teams research, analyze and construct arguments, defending their assessment of the significant moral issues involved in current social, legislative, medical, business, and general interest events.

Students must demonstrate that they have considered the facts of the case, can comprehend and articulate the underlying relevant ethical principles, defend their claims about how the case should be resolved, and answer challenges to their arguments put forward by the opposing side.