Workshop on Teaching Bioethics in Animal Agriculture: Outcomes for Faculty in Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine

A USDA funded Challenge Grant workshop entitled, “Teaching Bioethics in Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine Curricula” was held in January 2017 in Baltimore, MD. The workshop, led by Purdue University in collaboration with four other land grant institutions aimed to facilitate knowledge and confidence of instructors in animal sciences and veterinary medicine tasked with delivering agricultural animal bioethics course content. A standardized curriculum for teaching agricultural animal bioethics, supplementary materials, active learning exercises, and a project website were developed by the multidisciplinary team of principal investigators. These resources were shared with workshop participants. Two philosophers with expertise in bioethics served as discussion facilitators. The 2-day workshop was attended by 20 participants from universities across the US. Participants’ teaching duties ranged from covering overviews of animal bioethics topics in introductory courses to delivering specific upper-level courses focused on animal welfare and bioethics. Prior to the workshop, participants were asked to identify their teaching challenges and workshop goals. The most commonly noted challenges were facilitating/promoting classroom discussion, personal knowledge of or experience with teaching the subject matter, "going deeper" and incorporating multiple ethical frameworks into discussions, and stimulating student interest in bioethics. Common goals included course improvements, improving personal knowledge or skills related to bioethics instruction, and networking. The basic curriculum and content delivery strategies were explored using multiple concurrent breakout group sessions, among which participants were able to choose. Participants were asked to rate the applicability of these workshop sessions to their teaching roles and their levels of usefulness. For the session on Understanding Basics of Moral Philosophy and Translating to Bioscience Students, 14 participants attended and responded. Of these, 35% (n = 5) strongly agreed and 57% (n = 8) agreed that the material was relevant; 85% (n = 12) said they would incorporate the material into their courses. For the session on Reviewing and Delivering Basic Concepts Related to Sustainability, 5 participants responded. All strongly agreed that the material was applicable to their roles in academia, and all five said they would incorporate the material into their courses. Each of the other workshop sessions was similarly perceived to be both applicable and useful. The overall responses indicated that participants’ goals were met and that the workshop helped to enhance the quality of their instruction on bioethics and stimulate further interest in related pedagogy.