Michael Pritchard

Michael Pritchard is the Willard A. Brown Professor of Philosophy at Western Michigan University. He is also co-director of Western's Center for the Study of Ethics in Society. He is co-author (with C.E. Harris and Michael Rabins) of Engineering Ethics: Concepts and Cases, 3rd ed. (Wadsworth, 2005). He is also co-author (with C.E. Harris and Michael Rabins) of Practicing Engineering Ethics (IEEE Engineers Guide to Business Series, 1997).

Pritchard has also prepared a set of 33 case studies along with a set of commentaries by various ethics teachers from engineering and philosophy. The cases and commentaries are the result of an NSF grant, "Ethics in Engineering: A Case Study Approach."

For another NSF grant, "Ethics in Engineering: Good Works," Pritchard developed materials for students that emphasize exemplary engineering practice, in contrast to merely avoiding wrongdoing. He has published four articles related to this project: "Responsible Engineering: Gilbane Gold Revisited," with Mark Holtzapple, Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol. 3, No. 2, April 1997, pp. 217 230; "Professional Responsibility: Focusing on the Exemplary," Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol. 4, No. 2, April 1998, pp. 215 233; "Service Learning and Engineering Ethics," Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol. 6, Issue 3, 2000, pp. 413 422; and "Responsible Engineering: the Importance of Character and Imagination," Science and Engineering Ethics, Vol. 7, No. 3, July 2001, pp. 391 402.

For middle school and high school science teachers interested in bringing ethics into their science classes, Pritchard and Theodore Goldfarb (Chemistry, SUNY at Stony Brook), with the support of several NSF grants, have completed Ethics in the Science Classroom (1999), an instructional guide with lesson plans prepared by teachers who participated in summer institutes directed by Goldfarb.

For a more recent NSF project, "Teaching Research Ethics: An Institutional Change Model," Pritchard gained the support of a large cadre of faculty and graduate student Research Ethics Fellows at Western Michigan University and is developing instructional modules as a vehicle for discussions of research ethics across the university research community.