By Chrysa Keenon | Echo
Last Saturday, the Ethics Bowl team took second place in regional competition and qualified for the national tournament. This has been the 8th consecutive year the team has qualified.
The competition was held at Marian University in Indianapolis. According to professor of philosophy and religion Jim Spiegel, there were 32 teams from 20 colleges and universities that participated, such as Heidelberg University, Butler University, University of Central Arkansas, Missouri State University and the winner Youngstown State University.
An Ethics Bowl competition can be broken down into three rounds, according to senior Caleb Holleman. One college team is put against another, with one team defending a case given to them, allowing for time to be questioned by the other team and the judges and responding to those questions.
Two teams from Taylor were originally scheduled to participate in competition, but when another competitor school failed to show for the competition, the judges requested a third team be formed. According to Spiegel, Taylor has done this in the past, and did so again when a group of alternates pulled together to form a third team to compete.
Sophomore Dustin Lin was on the third team that was formed from alternates. This is his first year on the Ethics Bowl team.
"(I) felt like it was really great," Lin said. "I got the experience as (a) first year (competitor), also getting the experience of how it runs and how good of a communicator you (can be) from it."
According to senior Darrah Moul, the Ethics Bowl team normally meets about two hours per week. However, during preparation for the competition, Moul said the team averaged 8 to 10 hours per week.
Moul said the team practiced so frequently every night they often got kicked out of the library.
"A lot of the fun is in the preparation," Moul said. "(The night before,) we were saying that, 'Let's go do well so we can do this all over again.' So we're all looking forward to doing it again."
Spiegel said the national competition will take place in the Hilton Palmer House Hotel in Chicago on March 3-4.
He relayed 36 teams are entered and will compete, with Taylor being one of the few Christian colleges in attendance.
"I really enjoy the people on the team," Holleman said. "For me . . . the main benefit of Ethics Bowl (is) the group of people that you get to spend a lot of time with. You're working (toward) a goal, and it's kind of the idea of struggling together makes you closer, and I'm excited that we get to do it again."
