In the past year, ethical issues of occupational life achieved unprecedented visibility. Revelations of misconduct left almost no sphere of professional activity untouched, and ethics itself became the cover story of an issue of Time. But, as often happens, coverage seems to lag behind events. What impresses me most are energetic, new responses to these issues by educators and professional societies, and the acceleration of activity in applied ethics.

CSEP received a marked increase in requests to provide help to engineering faculty preparing to introduce course work on engineering ethics. The exchanges which followed indicate that a number of schools are committed to going beyond mere compliance with accreditation requirements. At more than a half dozen institutions with which CSEP has been involved, faculty seek to create an environment in which engineering ethics courses can take root and thrive.

Those who are taking the lead in their institutions stress the need to impress their colleagues in a dramatic way with the importance and pervasiveness of ethical issues in order to elicit their support. Beyond that, they look for ways to prepare themselves and their colleagues to provide students with a framework for dealing with ethical problems. They are debating alternative notions of a framework. These efforts reflect a growing emphasis, in a number of schools, on training professional school faculty to teach ethics in a rigorous way. Ethics seminars bringing together faculty from a number of disciplines are appearing on campuses in various parts of the country. Indeed, the faculty development effort casts a wide net. As one proponent of these initiatives put it, "We regard all our faculty as educating professionals with a small p."

Engineering professional societies also are engaged in new enterprises. The National Society of Professional Engineers is trying to increase the scope of its ethics activity by establishing a national institute, with an eye to influencing engineering education as well as practice. CSEP has been associated with this initiative. Several other societies, such as the American Society of Agricultural Engineers, have called upon CSEP for help in putting ethics on the programs of meetings.

This year also brought a notable increase in the range of occupations with which CSEP was involved. The scope of CSEP's activities was expanded by programs or workshops for major building contractors, vocational education teachers, administrative law judges, fundraising executives, financial analysts, grade school teachers, and state presidents of hospital auxiliary organizations. In almost every case, CSEP's involvement was part of an effort by a professional or trade association to begin giving serious attention to ethical issues arising in practice.

The range of institutions turning to CSEP for information or consultation has also expanded. Requests from entities such as the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, United Way in Indiana, and the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada have drawn the Center beyond its traditional constituencies of educational institutions, professional societies, and trade associations.

For the first time, announcements of the formation of new centers seemed to outpace the appearance of codes of ethics of occupational groups or companies. CSEP's Library contains a referral bank of centers, a comprehensive collection of codes of ethics, and a listing of the contents of each collection. The listings are available on request for a modest charge, and copies of materials on file may be ordered.

A major new CSEP project, funded by the Hitachi Foundation began this June. It addresses the gap between engineers and managers in decision making in bureaucratic organizations (see p. 6 this issue). The project should develop programs for dealing with problems of professional responsibility, such as those revealed by the Challenger accident (see Perspectives, Spring, 1987, p. 2).

The research and writing project on "National Security, The First Amendment, and Scientific and Technical Information" (funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation) has reached the half-way point. In the two meetings held to date, assessment of alternative controls and the capacities of different institutions of government to deal with areas of conflict have proceeded in tandem with an examination of the foundations of free expression. Project investigators include: Professor Lee Bollinger, Dean, University of Michigan Law School; Benjamin DuVal, research attorney; James Ferguson, U.S. Attorney; Professor Robert Ladenson, HT philosopher; Mark Lynch, attorney, Covington and Burling: and Dr. Harold Relyea, researcher, Congressional Research Service.

The recently completed project on ethical implications of intellectual property protection for scientific and technical information will have as its final product a volume of essays to be published by Rutgers University Press. The volume includes edited versions of some of the papers from the 1985 National Science Foundation-funded conference and additional essays specially commissioned for the volume. Six papers derived from the project were published in Science, Technology, and Human Values in the Winter, 1987 issue.

The project on Ethical Issues in Organizational Development, directed by Mark Frankel, former CSEP Director, was completed this year. The final stage of that undertaking will be a volume published by Jossey-Bass and titled Casebook on Ethical Issues in Organization Development. CSEP Steering Committee member Robert Ladenson is co-editor.

Nearing completion is a report deriving from an American Association for the Advancement of Science symposium organized for the 1987 annual meeting by political scientist Paul Deforest of I IT and Vivian Weil. Appearing as a publication of AAAS, the report, Biotechnology: Professional Issues and Social Concerns, will contain editors' introductions and six papers.

Authors include Roger Beachy, scientist, Washington University; Michael Davis, philosopher, CSEP; Clifford Grobstein, scientist, University of California, San Diego; Sheldon Krimsky, social scientist, Tufts University; Edward MacCordy, Administrator for Research, Washington University; and Dr. Jeffrey Price, Vice President for R & D, Cetus Corporation.

In the formative stage is a project on ethics in financial services. A core group of academics and practitioners is being formed to produce an indepth, first-hand study of the financial services industry, identifying ethical pressure points, ethical problems, and ways of dealing with them.

Again this year, with funding from the Crawford Foundation, CSEP presented public lectures dealing with broad, provocative questions. The two speakers addressed science policy issues with ethical dimensions. In February, IIT's new Provost, I. Melvin Bernstein, spoke on the topic "Can Your Professor Also Be An Entrepreneur?" In April, Professor Robert Kargon, Willis K. Shepard Professor of the History of Science at the Johns Hopkins University, lectured on "Uneasy Partnership: Science and Politics in 20th Century America:'

During the course of the year, Center staff and faculty associates produced a number of papers that have been added to CSEP's Publications List. Of particular note are Warren Schmaus' "An Analysis of Fraud and Misconduct in Science," (from the AAAS's volume, Project on Scientific Fraud and Misconduct), Michael Davis' "Vocational Teachers, Confidentiality, and Professional Ethics" and Fay Sawyiers' "Philosophy and Children," the latter two appearing in the most recent issue of the International Journal of Applied Philosophy. A list of periodicals in which articles by CSEP staff or associates appeared includes Teaching Philosophy, Business Economics, Business and Professional Ethics Journal, Management Insight, Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, and Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judges. Association Management, a periodical for association executives, carried an article in the May issue calling attention to CSEP's resources for practitioners dealing with codes of ethics. In his introduction to the inaugural issue of the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Summer, 1987, Thomas Ehrlich, then President-elect of Indiana University, noted that of organizations concerned with studying issues of professional ethics, two of the most significant are the Hastings Center and CSEP

Fay Sawyier, who was Editor of Perspectives from 1983 to 1987, retired this spring from her position as a tenured member of the Humanities Department. Fay plans to continue her work on philosophy for children in the public schools and her teaching at the University of Indiana, Gary. Both the philosophy section of the Humanities Department and CSEP strongly reflect Fay's creative and constructive energies. The Center extends to Fay very best wishes for a fulfilling and enjoyable "retirement." Her colleagues at CSEP look forward to future association with her.

Vivian Weil June, 1988

The Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at the Illinois Institute of Technology was established in 1970 for the purpose of promoting education and scholarship relating to ethical and policy issues of the professions.

EDITOR: Michael Davis
STAFF: Rebecca Newton
EDITORIAL BOARD: Thomas Calero, Martin Malin, Vivian Weil, Michael Davis

Opinions expressed in Perspectives on the Professions are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions or the Illinois Institute of Technology. Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Ill. 60616.