Chris Robichaud, Innovations Award 2015

Chris Robichaud is dedicated to developing in students a capacity for exercising genuine moral agency in their professional lives. To provoke and support such development, he immerses students in ethical dilemmas through simulations, games, cases, debates, and class discussion. These real-life contexts push students to integrate moral considerations with economic, managerial, political, and other considerations, even as they are eventually forced to arrive at--and justify--their decisions. He is also committed to bringing philosophical ideas to wider audiences, and thus explores issues in moral and political philosophy that arise in pop culture stories, especially superhero narratives.

Samples of innovation:

• Simulating the Demands of Ethical Decision-Making - A Simulation on Allocating Scarce Resources at Liberty Hospital, by Chris Robichaud
• Hero or Traitor? Edward Snowden and the NSA Spying Program - An HKS case by Laura Winig for Chris Robichaud, described in an HKS PolicyCast
• Divided We Stand: Gay Marriage Rulings and Official Disobedience - An HKS case by Laura Winig for Chris Robichaud

“Professor Robichaud has inspired several changes across the HKS curriculum, incorporating case studies with practical simulations. . . His demonstrated track record of targeted approaches to making ethics pedagogy fun and engaging for students has made ethics a more practical area of study for many students.” — HKS Student

“Professor Robichaud is at the forefront of teaching experimentation.” — HKS Student

“If what we are doing as a school is training future leaders, leaders must be introduced to the fact that their actions have consequences. His simulations allow students to do that and to understand the reasons why the core competencies of the MPP are so crucial.” — HKS Student

“Professor Robichaud is unafraid to innovate.” — HKS Student