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Services and Projects of the Bioethics Program

The Bioethics Program is currently in its 15th year of providing support for teaching, research, and outreach on ethical issues surrounding the life sciences in general, and agricultural biotechnology in particular. An anniversary provides an excellent opportunity to give a brief overview of how the program works and what it is doing for the university and beyond.

History

The Bioethics Program began in 1986 when the Iowa state legislature gave the university $16 million to begin an agricultural biotechnology research program and $50,000 to support research into the social, economic, and ethical dimensions of agricultural biotechnology. In the years since, funding sources have changed, now including Iowa State University and other grant-funding sources. Throughout its history, though, the mission of the ISU Bioethics Program has always been to support research, learning, and engagement in the area of life science ethics pertaining to agriculture, food, animals, and the environment.

Mission

The program's initiatives and offerings are developed and maintained with the advice of an advisory committee of 12 faculty members from seven academic disciplines, including philosophy and religious studies, agronomy, zoology and genetics, chemical engineering, and animal science. The program is coordinated by Gary Comstock, professor of philosophy and religious studies.

A variety of activities and services are offered to advance this mission, including the Bioethics Institute, departmental seminar series, an annual ISU faculty retreat, and comprehensive links to educational and other bioethics-related information and case studies on the program's website.

Outreach

The program also is part of a five-state consortium grant funded by the USDA that is examining the economic, ethical, and social aspects of biotechnology. The grant involves nine land-grant institutions in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.

Kristen Hessler is a post-doctoral teaching fellow supported by the grant. Dr. Hessler is developing courses, both for the classroom and online, that focus on various aspects of bioethics. She also works with consumer and other groups, in part through the Biotechnology Outreach Education Center at Iowa State University.

The Bioethics Institutes are another key outreach component of the program. Institutes are held every summer for faculty at colleges and universities from around the world who are interested in incorporating ethical topics into their life sciences courses. Participants develop a case study during the week, as well as attending lectures and other interactive events. The week-long Institutes have been held at Iowa State University, University of Illinois, Michigan State University, North Carolina State University, Purdue, Oregon State, and the University of Lisbon in Portugal. An Institute will be held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the summer of 2002.

Assistance

Keeping up with the various programs offered by the Bioethics Program is a challenging task. But program assistant Lynette Edsall is always prepared.

Edsall has been the program assistant since January 2000, jumping right into the last-minute plans for a faculty retreat held over semester break that month. After the retreat, she quickly started making arrangements for that summer's Bioethics Institutes. Nothing has slowed down since.

"I am in charge of making all the physical arrangements on where to meet, what to eat etc for the events on campus, and sometimes those off campus," Edsall said.

In addition to those arrangements, Edsall also prepares agendas, information packets, and handbooks for participants at the Institutes, sending everything out in time for participants to prepare for the workshop. She also works with presenters at the Institutes on travel and other preparations.

When she isn't working on the upcoming Institutes and other events, Edsall works on maintaining follow-up contact with past participants and working with the program's web site coordinator to post relevant information for the site's audience.

Edsall said she enjoys the challenges of her job. "I like putting the conferences together. It is rewarding to see everything go smoothly after all the planning put into it," she said.

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