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Extension ethicist
Kristen Hessler is breaking new ground by bringing ethics into Iowa
public schools
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In a small office on the third floor of the Molecular Biology Building,
Kristen Hessler is just now beginning to learn the ins and outs of Iowa
State.
After all she has only been on campus for a few months. Hessler is the
new postdoctoral teaching fellow in ethics and agricultural biotechnology,
a position funded by a four-year USDA grant. She has dual responsibilities
with the Office of Biotechnology and teaches two courses in the Department
of Philosophy and Religious Studies.
Despite this being her first full-time professional academic job, Hessler
has walked into a different type of job. In fact she may be the first
in her field.
"She is the first person in history, to my knowledge, to be professionally
trained as a philosopher whose job is to help high school teachers extend
discussions of ethics into the public schools," says Gary Comstock,
professor of philosophy and religious studies. "I think she is the
world's first 'extension ethicist.'
"Clearly, she is a very important person not only to the department
(Philosophy and Religious Studies) and college (Liberal Arts and Sciences),
but to the entire university."
Hessler never thought about her job one way or another until Comstock
mentioned his observation to her.
"When he put it that way, it made me think a little," she said.
"This position may be unique. If that's true, I would like to see
more people like me."
Hessler's responsibilities include developing an on-line ethics course
for the spring semester with a target audience of high school teachers,
particularly those who are already teaching biotechnology.
She has also talked to visiting groups of school administrators about
ethics and biotechnology. The response she has gotten from those sessions
has proved to be encouraging.
"The school administrators asked excellent, extremely thoughtful
questions," she said. "They seemed to enjoy talking about the
subject. They took the framework of what I was saying and furthered the
discussion. From my perspective, it was a very positive reaction to offering
this type of service to them."
Hessler made her way to Iowa State via New York City and the University
of Arizona, where she recently completed her Ph.D. There she worked on
bioethics and plans to continue her research on campus on fundamental
issues concerning human rights and new technologies in agriculture.
"Biotechnology advances could enable us to fulfill more of these
rights to more people," she said. "But on the other hand, other
people think that biotechnology could have adverse effects on some of
our environmental rights.
"That's one of the things I really like about this job - that intersection
of theory and real life. It comes up constantly in this job."
Around LAS
November 4-11, 2001
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