Ethics and Computer Science

The Department of Computer Science is committed to providing opportunities for Wake Forest students to engage with ethics, virtue, and character education as it relates to computer science and technology. Below please find information on these initiatives.

Courses

Dr. William Cochran, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Computer Science and an Affiliate of the Program for Leadership and Character, has developed the following courses focused on the intersection of leadership, character, and ethics with computing and technology.

CSC 191: Ethics of Emerging Technologies

CSC 391: Ethical Computer Science

In addition, Dr. Cochran has worked with other members of the faculty in Computer Science to develop and embed relevant modules in other courses offered by the Department of Computer Science, including:

CSC 111: Introduction to Computer Science 

CSC 201: Data Structures and Algorithms

CSC 231: Programming Languages

CSC 301: Algorithm Design And Analysis

CSC 332/632: Mobile and Pervasive Computing 

CSC 371/671: Artificial Intelligence 

CSC 374/674: Machine Learning  

Dr. Natalia Khuri participated in Wake Forest University Program for Leadership and Character summer course institute and includes an exploration of ethics within the context of her course on natural language processing (NLP).

Leadership And Character Department Grant

In academic year 2021-2022, the Department received additional support from the University’s Program for Leadership and Character through a financial grant. This funding has supported the hiring of two undergraduate students to explore the space of currently available ethics, virtue, and character education modules published in the computer science literature. It also supported a Spring 2022 department colloquium talk by Dr. Tobias Flattery (Wake Forest University) titled “Do Robots Deserve Moral Rights? Even If Not, Should We Treat Them As If They Do?”.