Student Ethics Essay Award

ASHA is pleased to announce the seventh annual Student Ethics Essay Award (SEEA) competition. This program is conducted as part of ASHA's efforts to enhance ethics education activities. The SEEA is designed to provide opportunities for NSSLHA members who are undergraduate or graduate students in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) to think about ethical decision making as they prepare to start careers in audiology, speech-language pathology, or speech, language, and hearing sciences. The goal of the SEEA is to create greater awareness of situations individuals in CSD careers may encounter that could pose ethical dilemmas and options for addressing these dilemmas.

Students will write an essay on the ethics topic shown below and submit it to their NSSLHA Chapter Advisor for initial review. NSSLHA members who are not affiliated with a specific NSSLHA chapter may submit their entries to their Regional Councilors. Each NSSLHA chapter/Regional Councilor may select up to five student essays for submission to ASHA for the final review and selection process.

Members of ASHA's Board of Ethics will review the entries and select the three winning essays. Monetary prizes ($750 for first place, $500 for second place, and $250 for third place) and certificates will be awarded to the writers of the top three essays. Any or all of the winning essays may be published on the ASHA and/or NSSLHA website, in The ASHA Leader, and/or in other ASHA/NSSLHA publications.

Faculty may wish to download and print the 2012 SEEA Flyer [PDF] to disseminate to their students.

See Student Ethics Essay Award Recipients to read the essays selected for this award in previous years.

Award Eligibility

Individuals must be a member of a local NSSLHA chapter or a member of the national NSSLHA organization. (Note: Only NSSLHA chapters in good standing with the Association are eligible to submit a member student's essay. NSSLHA chapters may recertify online with the national office.
Individuals must be enrolled part time or full time during the 2011–2012 academic year in an undergraduate or graduate-level CSD program.
Graduate students must be enrolled in a program currently accredited (or in Candidacy status) by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology.

2012 Essay Topic

Drawing upon ASHA's Code of Ethics, relevant Issues in Ethics Statements, and other resources, students will write an essay on the following topic: Persons in our professions are as likely as anyone else to suffer from mental illnesses of varying degrees of severity or to suffer from various forms of addiction and substance abuse. The term "impaired practitioner" is widely used to refer to professionals when such illnesses and addictions adversely affect their ability to carry out their responsibilities. Write an essay in which you consider the ethical issues raised by the problem of impaired professionals, giving attention to such questions as the following:

What ethical responsibilities does the professional have in dealing with his or her own impairment, particularly when it may adversely affect his/her clinical, administrative, supervisory, teaching, research, and/or business practices in the professions of communication sciences and disorders?
What ethical responsibilities do the colleagues, supervisors, and employers of an impaired professional have?
What responsibilities should ASHA have in this area and why?
When the impaired practitioner/researcher falsifies charges for services, misrepresents information in reports or research, abandons patients, fails to document treatment, or violates the Code of Ethics in other ways, should their impairment have a bearing on the findings of the Board of Ethics; and if so, what should that be?

Essay Requirements

Essay Format

Length: 1,200 words or less, excluding title and any references. Essays exceeding the 1,200-word limit will be disqualified.
Standard format: title, introduction, body, and summary/conclusion
Microsoft Word, 12-point font, double-spaced on 8½" by 11" white paper
Pages must be numbered.

The 2012 Student Ethics Essay Award Application Form [PDF] must be completed and signed by the student and NSSLHA Chapter Advisor/Regional Councilor and attached to the essay.
The student's name and other identifying information should appear only on the Student Ethics Essay Writing Contest Application Form, not on the essay itself, in order to ensure objectivity in the review process. The student's name or initials may be used in the file name for the e-mailed version, as we will re-save the document with the 2012 SEEA ID code assigned by ASHA Staff before sending the essay to reviewers.
Entries must be original work, unpublished, not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and must be submitted by an undergraduate or graduate student currently enrolled in a CSD program. Graduate students must be enrolled in a CAA-accredited (or in Candidacy status) graduate CSD program. Submissions of entries authored by multiple individuals will not be considered. Individuals may not submit more than one essay.
Resources: Essays should demonstrate the writer's familiarity with ASHA's Code of Ethics, Issues in Ethics Statements, other ethics resources and other relevant ASHA documents available on ASHA's website and ASHA's Ethics webpages.
It is recommended that students review essay-writing guidelines offered in numerous publications and online resources.

Essay Evaluation Criteria

NSSLHA Chapter Advisors/Regional Councilors may use any criteria and means they choose for evaluating essays and selecting no more than five for submission to ASHA. Possible evaluation criteria include, but are not limited to, the following:

Has the writer followed the essay format and submission requirements described above?
Has the writer approached the essay topic in a fresh, rich, and illuminating way, avoiding moral platitudes and oversimplification?
Has the writer demonstrated familiarity with the ASHA Code of Ethics (2010), relevant Issues in Ethics statements, and other ethics-related resources?
Does the writer make a contribution to ethical deliberation and discernment that is mature, insightful, and likely to be both helpful and interesting to members of NSSLHA and ASHA?
Has the writer presented his/her position in a clear, logical manner that facilitates understanding of the writer's line of reasoning?
Has the writer supported his/her arguments with factors that are ethically relevant and avoid preoccupation with matters that have little logical relevance to the writer's thesis?
Is the writer's analysis comprehensive, objective, balanced, and thorough?
Is the essay free of grammatical, typographical, and punctuation errors?

Each NSSLHA chapter or Regional Councilor may submit up to five (5) essays to ASHA for consideration. Upon receipt of completed applications and essays by ASHA, members of the Board of Ethics will review them and select the winning essays by early June 2012. Any or all of the winning essays may be published by ASHA and/or NSSLHA in one or more of the organizations' print or online publications vehicles. Essays submitted for this contest will be neither critiqued nor returned.

Submission Instructions

Submission Instructions/Checklist for Students

Ensure that you and your essay meet the eligibility and format requirements shown above.
Print, complete, and sign the student section of the 2012 Student Ethics Essay Award Application Form [PDF].
Submit the completed and signed application form and print version of your essay to your NSSLHA Chapter Advisor or NSSLHA Regional Councilor by 5:00 p.m. on Friday April 13, 2012. (Essays/applications submitted directly to ASHA by students will not be accepted.
E-mail your essay as an Microsoft Word document attachment to your NSSLHA Chapter Advisor or NSSLHA Regional Councilor by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 13, 2012. (Note: You must provide both the print version of the essay attached to the application form and an e-mailed version of your essay to your chapter advisor or regional councilor.)

Submission Instructions/Checklist for NSSLHA Chapter Advisors/Regional Councilors

Confirm that students submitting essays meet the eligibility requirements shown above and that students have completed the student section of the application form.
Review the essays submitted by eligible students and select essays to be submitted to ASHA. Each NSSLHA Chapter/Regional Councilor may submit up to five (5) essays for consideration.
Complete and sign the NSSLHA Chapter Advisor/Regional Councilor section of the application form(s).
Attach completed and signed application form(s) to the print version of the essay(s) and mail them to ASHA at the address shown below. Mailing must be postmarked by midnight on Friday, April 20, 2012. (If you are submitting more than one entry, you may mail all essays and applications forms in the same envelope.)
E-mail the essay(s) as MS Word document attachment(s) to Lorraine Lennon, ASHA's Ethics Program Manager, at llennon@asha.org by midnight on Friday, April 20, 2012. Your e-mail message should include the name of the NSSLHA chapter submitting the essay(s) and the total number of essays being submitted. (Note: We need both the print version of the essay to be mailed with the application form and an electronic version of the essay e-mailed to us for coding and dissemination to the essay reviewers.)
Mail application(s) and essay(s) to

and

llennon@asha.org

Submission Dates

Student Deadline: Students must submit their completed application forms and essays to their NSSLHA Chapter Advisor or Regional Councilor by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 13, 2012. The essay must also be e-mailed as an MS Word document attachment to your Chapter Advisor/Regional Councilor by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 13, 2012.

NSSLHA Chapter Advisor/Regional Councilor Deadline: The NSSLHA Chapter Advisor/Regional Councilor must submit the completed and signed application form(s) and essay(s) to ASHA by mail postmarked by midnight on Friday, April 20, 2012. The essay(s) must also be e-mailed as an MS Word document attachment to ethics@asha.org no later than midnight on Friday, April 20, 2012.

Authors of winning essays and their Chapter Advisors/Regional Councilors will be notified in early June 2012.

Contact Lorranie Lennon, ASHA's Ethics Program Manager, at llennon@asha.org if you need additional information.

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