CSEP: Introduction
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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 generated 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 government. 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 online, 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 online searches. Staffed by a professional research librarian, the library provides bibliographic assistance to researchers anywhere in the world and assists visiting scholars and practitioners. CSEP's publications include an engineering ethics anthology, a report on engineering ethics in engineering education, a case book on ethical issues in organizational development, a series of six monographs for teaching professional ethics, and papers by CSEP staff and faculty associates. In addition, CSEP publishes a compilation of its collection of codes of ethics, a list of the contents of its referral bank of centers, and a publications list of papers by staff and faculty associates. The publications list contains over 200 items. All these publications are available from CSEP. Titles of major publications include:
The Center has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Illinois Humanities Council, the Chicago Library System, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the EXXON Education Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the National Society of Professional Engineers, Hitachi, Joyce and Grainger. CSEP collaborates with faculty in all of IIT's colleges and is a resource for the entire institution. The Center is guided by its Director, a Steering Committee of faculty associates, and an outside Advisory Board.
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