From: Riggs, Wayne D.
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 7:51 PM
To: 'Matt Deaton'; Ellis, Stephen E.
Cc: Williams, James M.; Chris Shrock; Black, Jacob P.
Subject: RE: OU High School Ethics Bowl Initial Invite
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 7:51 PM
To: 'Matt Deaton'; Ellis, Stephen E.
Cc: Williams, James M.; Chris Shrock; Black, Jacob P.
Subject: RE: OU High School Ethics Bowl Initial Invite
Hi Everyone,
Sorry for the radio silence, Matt. I have been swamped with end-of-semester tasks, as no doubt has everyone else. But now grades are turned in and I can catch my breath and think about ethics bowl again.
From your most recent emails, I gather that there are several tasks that need doing soon.
1. Determine a date (semester, anyway) for the Ethics Bowl. Given how hard it is to schedule anything in Norman during football season, I would strongly urge that we aim for Spring 2016 for our first Ethics Bowl.
2. Get a list of Oklahoma high schools and contact info for principals. Anyone know where to start, here? I don't have a clue.
3. Send a letter (such as the one Matt copied into his previous email) to those principals and/or contact persons at the high schools. It might help to touch base with somebody higher up in the public ed administration, too. Steve, any contacts there?
Once we get the mailing list compiled, I can have my research assistant work on getting the initial letter out once school starts back in January. Somebody will probably need to be designated as the point person for people to contact if they have questions. I don't think I can be that person. I have trouble keeping up with my email and phone correspondence as it is. So we need a volunteer for that.
Obviously, there's lots more to be done after these first steps, but this gives us a reasonable to-do list for the next month, I think. Matt, am I leaving anything out that needs doing immediately?
I will continue to contact other people who might be interested and getting them involved as they wish. Which brings me to the issue of how to coordinate all this activity. I am open to suggestions, but I have gone ahead and created a blog to help facilitate all this. I will invite you all to it. It's on Blogger.com and you will probably have to sign into or create a Google account to use it. Sorry! Again, if there's a better way I'm all ears. But I have used blogs in the past to coordinate conferences. It works nicely as a place for everybody to communicate to everybody else and to post documents that anyone involved can access.
For now, though, I would appreciate it if y'all would reply to this email with your various suggestions regarding 1-3 above. I'm really excited to get started on this! I hope you all have a peaceful and restful holiday break.
Cheers!
Wayne
Wayne D. Riggs
University of Oklahoma
Philosophy Department, Chair
Norman, OK 73019
From: deatonmatt@gmail.com [mailto:deatonmatt@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Matt Deaton
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 5:50 AM
To: Ellis, Stephen E.
Cc: Riggs, Wayne D.; Williams, James M.; Chris Shrock; Black, Jacob P.
Subject: Re: OU High School Ethics Bowl Initial Invite
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2014 5:50 AM
To: Ellis, Stephen E.
Cc: Riggs, Wayne D.; Williams, James M.; Chris Shrock; Black, Jacob P.
Subject: Re: OU High School Ethics Bowl Initial Invite
Hi All,
Here's an example of a principals recruitment letter you might be able to edit and recycle -- used this a couple of years ago when launching the DC bowl.
Hoping everyone's having a great week, and just let me know as questions arise,
Matt
Friendship Leadership,
I'm organizing the first D.C. High School Ethics Bowl, tentatively to be held Dec 1st, and would love meet with you next week to discuss the possibility of sending a team from Friendship.
Ethics bowls are similar to debates, though rather being assigned a position, students are invited to think through tough moral and political issues using their own judgment, and are assessed according to how well they tend to the moral nuances of the cases, and present logical justifications for their positions. Here's a brief video, featuring footage from an actual competition. Beyond having the potential to improve students' standardized test scores (see attached pdf), ethics bowls truly have the power to transform America's political culture, as well as the lives of student participants.
Intercollegiate Ethics Bowls have been practiced for around two decades, but they've only been held on the high school level for five or so years. The Squire Family Foundation, the University of North Carolina's Parr Center for Ethics, and the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics are working to change that, and as lead outreach coordinator for the national effort, I'm helping organizers launch bowls from Santa Cruz to Miami.
However, I work and live in the D.C. area, and believe that a successful bowl in our nation's capital would produce a powerful ripple effect, inspiring organizers, principals and coaches all over the country -- especially since the winner of the D.C. bowl will be eligible to compete in the first National High School Ethics Bowl at the University of North Carolina this April. I also think there's an opportunity to involve faculty and students from area universities -- perhaps someone at a nearby philosophy department would be willing to serve as an assistant coach.
I'll attach a brief brochure, the official case pool from which December's competition cases will be drawn, and the rules and procedures for the national bowl, on which the D.C. bowl's rules will be based. I would love to meet with you, any teachers you think might be interested in serving as a head coach, and students at your convenience. And please feel free to call my cell if you (or any of your assistants) would rather talk than type.
Sincerely,
Matt
Matt Deaton, Ph.D.
Senior Research Fellow
Squire Family Foundation
On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 11:57 PM, Matt Deaton <matt@mattdeaton.com> wrote:
Wayne, Steve, All,Thanks so much for your early support for founding an Oklahoma High School Ethics Bowl. As the director of outreach for the National High School Ethics Bowl, I can say that a bowl at OU would be a very welcome addition to a growing group of flagship university sponsors, including the universities of Tennessee, North Carolina, Southern California, Washington, and Michigan, as well as Villanova, Rice and American University (DC).From what Wayne has shared, your situation would seem very fertile. You enjoy university leadership support, existing connections with high schools, and most importantly several volunteers willing to assist with event coordination.My recommendation is that you think about whether it would be better for you and the university to hold your bowl in the fall or spring, and then once you have a tentative date in mind, begin reaching out to area high school principals to let them know you'll be holding this event next academic year, and will be reaching out to them to identify a teacher to serve as a coach soon. Then as the fall semester approaches, you can touch base with them again, and make more formal arrangements to connect and register teams. And in the meantime put out feelers for potential judges, book space on campus, order trophies, and recruit phil grads or undergrads to serve as assistant coaches.But I could be getting ahead of myself, and should ask if anyone has questions about how the high school bowl differs from IEB, or any initial thoughts about organizing obstacles I might be able to help overcome. That's my role and responsibility -- to serve as a long-distance organizing consultant, which includes drawing on my experience as an organizer (founded bowls in TN and DC, and have helped about a dozen new organizers launch bowls of their own from Boston to Los Angles) and helping to identify solutions when issues arise.I'm looking forward to that, and thank you up front for your interest in promoting pre-college philosophy and ethics. By encouraging high schoolers to engage in civil, thoughtful issue discussion with their peers (the opposite of what they typically see on television and social media), ethics bowls have the power to dramatically change America's political culture for the better, and as a result create a more just world. And I'm very glad to have each of you involved in that mission -- thanks again for your interest.MattMatt Deaton, Ph.D.Senior Research Fellow, Squire Family Foundation www.SquireFoundation.orgNational Outreach Coordinator, National High School Ethics Bowl nhseb.unc.educell: 865-323-9773On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Ellis, Stephen E. <sellis@ou.edu> wrote:Hi all,I'm eager to help; love the Ethics Bowl!Steve
Sent from my iPadHi All!I am writing to you all because one way or another, you have expressed interest in helping to found a state high school ethics bowl competition here in Oklahoma. Below is the original email I received from Matt Deaton, proposing that idea. Matt has offered his guidance and expertise in making this happen. One of the challenges from the start, I would imagine, is to simply coordinate information and progress. Thus I am making a start by e-introducing you all to one another. So let me give you all a brief introduction to one another.Matt Deaton: Matt is a Senior Fellow at the Squire Family Foundation. He helps people do what we are about to try to do!Jacob Black: Jacob is a Program Specialist for Provost Kyle Harper. Jacob organizes events and probably a lot of other stuff in support of "The Virtuous Circle," a group of faculty, staff, and students who are interested in research on virtue, many of whom support the efforts of the Provost and others to obtain grant money to found a program to study virtue at OU.Steve Ellis: Steve is a philosophy professor at OU and coach of the OU Ethics Bowl team. Steve also often volunteers with local high school and middle school debate teams.Wayne Riggs: I think I am the only one known by all of you, but for the record I am the Chair of the OU Philosophy Department.Chris Shrock: Chris is a teacher/administrator at the Oklahoma School for Science and Math, a public magnet school that emphasizes STEM.James Williams: James teaches at Capitol City High School and has organized the first ever philosophy club there. He has already organized a trip where his kids came down to see a talk at OU.So Matt, here are the initial troops you have to work with. Can you help get us started?Best,WayneWayne D. RiggsUniversity of OklahomaPhilosophy Department, ChairNorman, OK 73019From: deatonmatt@gmail.com [mailto:deatonmatt@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Matt Deaton
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2014 3:57 PM
To: Riggs, Wayne D.
Subject: OU High School Ethics Bowl Initial InviteHi Dr. Riggs,Just a brief message to see if you or someone in your department might be interested in helping put together a high school ethics bowl, which would be a first in Oklahoma.I'm sure you and your ethics/social and political profs are busy, so I'll just share the url for the National High School Ethics Bowl, which is nhseb.unc.edu, and say that high school bowls are very similar to Intercollegiate Ethics Bowls sponsored by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, and are a great way to enable faculty with a service interest to interact with the community.I've personally help found bowls in Tennessee (with UT) and DC (with American U), and now assist new organizers across the U.S. thanks to a part-time fellowship with the Squire Family Foundation -- currently working with folks in Oregon, LA, Chicago and Indiana, and would love to work with OU.Handful of potentially useful files attached for your review -- please consider sharing with especially impressive graduate students as well,MattMatt Deaton, Ph.D.Senior Research Fellow, Squire Family Foundation www.SquireFoundation.orgOutreach Coordinator, National High School Ethics Bowl nhseb.unc.educell: 865-323-9773P.S. How much does running a bowl cost? So long as you have free access to university space, mainly nothing more than trophies and volunteer hours. There is a $50 registration team per school (not team), but that's then used to subsidize regional winners' travel costs to the annual National High School Ethics Bowl at UNC.
