Flying home in May from a meeting at UCLA at which IIT joined with 17 other universities to draft a grant proposal, I was prompted to reflect on the growing importance of CSEP's library. A long record of research and teaching in the ethics of engineering and scientific research had qualified CSEP and me to be included in the proposal. But our key resource turned out to be the library's capacity to knit the 18 universities into a national network of nanoscience and technology facilities, with ethics and social implications of technology as an integral component, through an ethics portal to be created and operated through CSEP's library.

Under the direction of our librarian Elizabeth Quinlan, a leader among solo librarians, CSEP's library has kept up with computing innovations that give specialized libraries power and scope. As manager of CSEP's codes of ethics online, Quinlan has gained experience with a large data collection. Recently, she has also had to oversee the development and maintenance of a large archive concerning the drafting of a code of ethics for software engineers. This archive's mix of open and restricted access has given Quinlan experience at the frontier of online archiving and skills needed to create the ethics portal proposed for the nano network.

My thoughts turned also to CSEP's increasing collaboration with colleagues at HT in Science and Technology Studies (STS). We have long recognized the potential fruitfulness, indeed the necessity, of combining STS with ethics research in engineering and science. In the nano proposal, HT's historian of technology, Tom Misa, describes a project he calls "Third Generation Technology Assessment," a new approach made possible by the insider perspective made available by the network. And Warren Schmaus, HT philosopher and historian of science, proposes an evolutionary notion of informed consent, for communities rather than individuals, to be tested in the nano network.

This pattern of collaboration appeared as well in the project to study the drafting of a code of ethics for software engineers. Our colleague. Ullica Segerstrale. sociologist of science, has played an important advisory role. She helped to guide the interviewing of participants in the drafting process. And she contributed to conceptualizing the participant-observer framework for the book to be produced. Loyola sociologist Peter Whalley, who has studied engineers, has played a similar role.

In addition to Whalley, the Advisory Board includes key figures from each of the two professional societies: Gerald Engel, from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and Donald Gotterbarn, from the Association of Computing Machinery. These colleagues, faculty members at the University of Connecticut and East Tennessee State University, respectively, have provided insight into the early history of software development and the subtleties of the perspectives of the two societies whose memberships overlap to a considerable extent.

To respond to emerging needs within BY and new opportunities for externally supported projects, CSEP added a research associate, Jadran Lee, to its staff early in 2003. Having just completed his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago, he undertook an intense but quick survey of nano science and technology that enabled him to contribute to CSEP's portion of the 18-university proposal.

Lee moved smoothly from his dissertation on Jeremy Bentham's writings on animals to teaching the first HT research ethics course for biomedical engineering graduate students. The use of animals in research is an important topic in that course, one of the first such courses in the country. Lee's current work includes preparation to teach ethics in other graduate engineering programs and to weave ethics throughout HT's new undergraduate business curriculum (to be launched in 2004).

Lee's teaching, as well as a recent one-day Ethics Across the Curriculum (EAC) workshop for HT's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, drew on the EAC workshops that :Michael Davis has conducted for engineering and science faculty since 1991. Made possible by funding from the National Science Foundation, the workshops were at first offered only to HT faculty but later to faculty from other universities. Both the 2002 and 2003 workshops included several participants from overseas.

CSEP Faculty Associate Robert Ladenson is planning the eighth annual national Ethics Bowl in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPS). Invented by Ladenson at CSEP in 1993, Ethics Bowl is a competition that offers an interesting new way to teach practical and professional ethics.

Teams of students compete by answering questions posing ethical problems concerning academia, personal relationships, professions, and social and political issues. Ethics Bowl has caught on with students in so many institutions that the competition, with 40 teams. has reached the capacity of APPE to host them. Fifteen schools are already on a waiting list for APPE's February 2004 meeting. With a committee of colleagues from other institutions, Ladenson is exploring ways to restructure the national competition. They hope to hold a competition that can accommodate all the schools that wish to participate while retaining what has made Ethics Bowl a valuable educational tool.

A staff of graduate students-from Electrical and Computer Engineering and from Computer Science-as well as undergraduates from various engineering departments support CSEP's daily operations and contribute technical expertise to CSEP's computer-based activities. For CSEP professional staff, the competence and commitment of these students in carrying out tasks from the mundane to the technically challenging makes their graduation a bittersweet experience.