Citadel student teams are preparing for competitions in cyber defense and ethics. On Feb. 24, The Citadel Cyber Defense Team will participate in the Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Contest. The team will compete from The Citadel campus, joining more than two dozen other college teams in cyberspace for the contest hosted from 1 – 4 p.m. (EDT) by the Kennesaw State University, which is located in Georgia.

The nine cadets competing are in various stages of their studies through The Citadel’s National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education, which was designated as a center of excellence by the National Security Agency and The U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“Cybersecurity skills that are studied in class really take hold through competitions like this where the students apply the tactics they’ve learned in a real-time environment to defend systems against different simulated cyber attacks,” said Shankar Banik, head of The Citadel’s Center for Cyber, Intelligence, and Security Studies. He is also The Citadel Graduate College director of computer science, and network security researcher. 

The Citadel Cyber Defense Team is preparing for the contest under the guidance of Scott West, Citadel Class of 1993 who works with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command known as SPAWAR. In October, the team earned the Best Forensics Team award at the Augusta Cyber Challenge in October. The same cadets, listed below, will participate in the Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Contest Saturday.

The top eight teams from the regional competition will move forward to the national event, scheduled for April 2-3 onsite at Kennesaw State University.

Citadel Ethics Team heading to Chicago for Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl National Championship

Sponsored by the Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics at The Citadel, 11 cadets and students will be in Chicago March 3-4 for the 2018 Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl. The 36 teams from institutions around the United States will argue and defend their moral assessment of some of the most troubling and complex ethical issues facing society.

“The Ethics Bowl provides cadets with an opportunity for the careful analysis and discussion of current ethical issues from a variety of professional and social areas,” said Grant Goodrich, Ph.D., Citadel professor and Ethics Bowl coach. “The students spend hours researching and developing their positions. They learn what the moral dimensions of each case are and how to examine each case from multiple points of view.”

Each of the invited teams qualified for a national contest position based on performances during 11 regional ethics bowls involving hundreds of students. The Citadel team placed third at the Nov. 4 bowl hosted by St. Petersburg College in Clearwater, Florida, qualifying for the national competition.

The Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) sponsors the bowls. The cases selected by APPE faculty members for the 22^nd year of the bowl address a wide array of topics in business and professional ethics, in personal relationships, and in social and political affairs including but not limited to, business, engineering, journalism, law, medicine, and social work.

According to the APPE competition description “students demonstrate their ability to (1) understand the facts of the case, (2) articulate the ethical principles involved in the case, (3) present an effective argument on how the case should be resolved, and (4) respond effectively to challenges put forth by the opposing team as well as the panel of expert judges.”

Members of The Citadel Ethics Bowl Team are listed below:

“Members of the Ethics Bowl Team also learn to carefully listen to an opposing team’s position and to respectfully pose questions and offer criticism. Teams often agree with each other’s position—the goal is to promote the best solution to the problem at hand,” said Goodrich.

The Krause Center for Leadership and Ethics has sponsored The Citadel’s Ethics Bowl Team since 2011.

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