At the Rutgers Professional Science Master’s (PSM) program, we encourage students to explore innovation. Recently, we were invited to share our knowledge at the Midwest Engineering Entrepreneurship Network (MEEN) Conference. Tom Bryant was joined by Beth Murphy and Suzanne Inhaber to present the keynote address and workshop “Teaching Ethics to Tech-ENTR Students.” This invited session allowed us to showcase our expertise in teaching both entrepreneurship and ethics, specifically in science-intensive enterprises.
Bryant has taught our signature Capstone course for over ten years. He is the lead instructor, responsible for the overall design of the course and grading. All Master of Business and Science (MBS) students complete this course before graduation, showcasing the skills they have learned throughout their education. Murphy, Assistant Professor of Professional Practice and MBS Life Sciences Coordinator, is the primary instructor of our course Ethics for Science and Technology Management. Inhaber is the primary co-instructor on both the Ethics and Capstone course.
The MEEN Conference is held annually by the Midwest Engineering Entrepreneurship Network, an organization that supports the efforts of Midwest technology entrepreneurship institutions. This year, the conference was held in Minneapolis, with over 30 universities represented. Universities came together to discuss entrepreneurship-related issues in engineering-intensive programs, including how to translate the problem-solving abilities of engineering schools into successful ventures and commercial projects.
Bryant, Murphy, and Inhaber have expertise on this topic. In the PSM program, we build a strong framework of entrepreneurship and ethics into our courses. Our students finish their degree by completing a Capstone course, which serves as our master's thesis. In this project-based course, students work in teams to choose an emerging science-derived intellectual property (IP) and develop a business plan to take this IP to market. Capstone allows students to practice skills learned throughout the MBS education, using knowledge of both science and business to commercialize successfully and manage the development of science-intensive enterprises. This course teaches both entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. Learners can use these skills to set up a new business, innovate within a company, or lead a new product. Students must master successful entrepreneurial practices and build in an effective ethical framework to optimize their projects.
In the PSM program, we teach students the skills needed to nurture innovative ideas and take business plans to market. We also provide our students with a solid ethical framework, allowing them to explore their values as they progress in their professional careers. In our Ethics course, we use morally gray case studies to help students build skills relating to judgment and assessing risk versus benefit. Ethics is also hugely important to the development of new biotech and drug remedies as well as artificial intelligence—if you’d like to learn more about ethics and AI, join us for the Special Lecture: Autonomous Vehicles – Legal and Ethical Lessons Learned from an AI App. Our Ethics course also teaches human subject testing and ethics related to scientific discoveries. As students complete their Capstone, they also consider ethical issues. When it comes to creating new and innovative firms, their impact on society isn’t always straightforward. An ethical framework is necessary to judge this impact. Our students consider how an invention will affect society—who it will benefit, who it may harm, whether it will have a positive environmental impact, etc. Students judge how to proceed with this knowledge. Ensuring that an innovation has maximum benefits also leads to higher-quality innovations and more likely venture success.
Introducing ethical concepts to students also teaches them to understand the need for a nuanced approach to life. Not every problem has a simple solution, and students learn to deal with uncertainty.
“People assume that entrepreneurs are risk-takers. My reading on that is that, no, they're not—they're careful experimenters,” said Bryant. Entrepreneurs carefully evaluate risks and run experiments to reduce the risk of financial loss. This experimentation process is informed by principles learned in our business courses; in our Ethics course, those principles relate to corporate responsibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Considering these issues leads students (and managers) to better, more robust solutions. These threads pull together naturally in the Capstone course, as each team comprises a diverse set of students who share the goal of bettering the world through innovation.
If you’d like to learn more about our Capstone course, mark your calendar—this year, students will present their Capstone projects on December 13th and 14th.