2023 J.T. Barton, Jr. Memorial Ethics Award Recipients

1st Place: Tyler Simmons (CHANGE + Connections)

Creating Habits and Norms Guiding Ethical Decisions (CHANGE), was established at Clemson University during the Spring 2019 semester. CHANGE serves to create ethical programming at both the university-wide and college-specific levels through bringing in speakers and hosting activities that focus on exposing students to real-life applications of ethical decision-making and ethical leadership. Tyler Simmons of CHANGE proposes ethical decision-making is at the root of this program as students will find issues that pose an ethical dilemma, while personally deciding how they feel about that issue. Her round table discussion with the CONNECTIONS program for minority and first year students, facilitated discussion about how Clemson University has attempted to provide resources to help first-years succeed and what they can improve on or have failed to do. Simmons hosted first-year Clemson student speakers for the event, who discussed their own experience on whether Clemson helped them in their achievements or not. 

2nd Place: Tre'zjon Bell (Brother 2 Brother)

Brother 2 Brother seeks to increase the comfort and retention rate of African American and Latino males at Clemson University but ultimately make a larger impact on the served population as a whole. They focused on programming social and academic events that are geared towards academic enrichment and cultural awareness.

With this award, Brother 2 Brother hosted a spring ball with music, a DJ, and dancing to create of atmosphere of positive energy and community bonding. Invitees included Black Clemson faculty and Black workers in other professional settings (engineers, lawyers, etc.) who shared their experience and wisdom from the field regarding how to navigate the workplace as a black person. Through this event, they taught professional ethics, identity ethics, and fine-dining etiquette. Professional ethics covered topics such as how to network and maneuver the workplace environment without code switching. Identity ethics discussed the mentioned topics with an emphasis as a Black person with expected side conversations that align with Black identity. Fine-dining etiquette covered how to use ethics when eating, showing students how to use certain utensils properly and the do's and don'ts of fine-dining.

3rd Place: Jaquial Durham (Love of Community)

This organizations provides resources to South Carolina residents with an emphasis on food & nutrition, affordable housing, entrepreneurship, and reduces recidivism to positively impact minority communities and empower individuals. Their vision is to build a network of Community Members to execute sustainable projects for the betterment of minority communities. 

Using this award, students were able to purchase workshop materials for a professional development workshop that was hosted for our K-12 students. Students were able to be a “doctor for a day”, and learned about the paths of doctors from diverse backgrounds and had discussions about different barriers that they faced and how they overcame them. The students K-12 students had the opportunity to learn how to take blood pressure, listen to heartbeats, etc. This workshop cultivated discussion and self esteem and the organization is thankful for the support from the Rutland Institute for Ethics!

Honorable mentions also receiving awards:

Elizabeth Zarrilli (The Aurantiaco)

The Aurantiaco is an annual print journal of critical writing on the humanities--including the study of philosophy and ethics--and social sciences authored by Clemson undergraduate students and edited, compiled, and published by a student-led publication team. The funding provided by the J.T. Barton Jr. Award sponsored their Spring Launch event to recognize the authors and editors of the publication. The the event showcased high quality academic writing to greater audiences as well as attracted new contributors for the next issue of the publication. 

Lane Mayfield (CHANGE)

CHANGE seeks to inspire a culture of ethical behavior on campus through various events and activities with the Clemson student body. CHANGE hosted an event to foster discussion about current ethical issues that concern leadership roles in our society.

Pramod Kumar Yadav (Tiger United University Consortium + PRTM)

The money from this award sponsored outreach events among Clemson’s students to educate them about ethical issues associated with tigers in the United States. The event included a visit (about 20 people) to the Carolina Tiger Rescues in North Carolina.