History & Mission of the Center
The Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP) was established in 1976 to promote research and teaching on practical moral problems in the professions. The first interdisciplinary center for ethics to focus on the professions, CSEP continues to be one of the nation's leading centers for practical and professional ethics. It is known for its work on ethics in engineering and science and in related areas of business.
CSEP promotes innovative teaching. It generates professional ethics courses at IIT and assists faculty at other universities to prepare for teaching professional ethics and to develop courses and programs. CSEP's Ethics Across the Curriculum project, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, prepares instructors to integrate ethics in ordinary courses. The project includes workshops for IIT faculty, professional society representatives concerned with continuing education, and faculty from other institutions.
Externally funded projects enable CSEP to conduct interdisciplinary research involving practitioners, as well as academics from IIT and other institutions. Topics CSEP has addressed include intellectual property protection for science and technology, national security restrictions on the dissemination of scientific and technical information, responsible conduct in science, university/industry research relationships, organizational development, ethics in vocational education, and individual and collective responsibility in engineering.CSEP assists professional societies in developing and revising codes of ethics and presenting ethics programs. It also conducts ethics workshops for business, trade associations, and city governments.
Since 1981, CSEP has published its semi-annual periodical, Perspectives on the Professions. Presenting short original articles by practitioners and scholars, Perspectives has won a wide audience in the U.S. and abroad. Each issue deals with a particular topic in professional ethics. An index of topics is available.
CSEP's library, which originated at the founding of the Center, has grown into a valuable resource on practical and professional ethics. The library is intended for researchers, teachers, and students outside IIT as well as on campus. In addition to its holdings of relevant books and leading periodicals, the library contains a comprehensive collection of codes of ethics, many now available on-line, and an extensive collection of materials on other centers. The library has enhanced its computer resources in order to interact with other libraries, as well as to conduct on-line searches. Staffed by a professional research librarian, the library provides bibliographic assistance to researchers anywhere in the world and assists visiting scholars and practitioners. Please visit our library blog for updates on new additons to our print and electrionic collections as well as upcoming projects and events.
