• Extension ethicist

  Kristen Hessler is breaking new ground by bringing ethics into Iowa public schools

• 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."
  

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November 4-11, 2001