Ethical Leadership Scholarships and Application

The Richard Richards Institute for Ethics awards scholarships and stipends to high school seniors and WSU students in the community each year. Students can apply for multiple scholarships listed below.

Application Instructions

• High School Senior Ethics Scholarships

  To be considered for selection as an Ethics Scholar, please submit the online application and the required documentation listed below:

  Winners will be honored and formally announced at the Ethics Scholarship Banquet at Weber State University. Scholarship winners and their parents will be informed before the banquet, and are strongly encouraged to attend. 

  First, gather the following information. If these items are not attached to your application, you may not be eligible for a scholarship.

  • High school transcript including current GPA and ACT scores (unofficial copy, such as a scanned PDF is acceptable).
  • Verification of high school graduation date by high school administrator, if you are a high school senior applying (e.g., brief letter from guidance counselor).
  • Letter of Recommendation (this can be from a faculty member, community member, school administrator, etc.)
  • A 500-word ethics essay, double spaced, titled and dated including your name and that of your high school. Please write on ONE of the following topics:
     

  1. Participating in college athletics has historically been seen as a path for student-athletes to pay for their higher education. Over time, however, this bargain has come to be seen as exploitative, given that top programs generate many millions of dollars more in revenues than are invested back in their student-athletes. Responding to these concerns, the NCAA passed an interim Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) policy in 2021 that allows student athletes to monetize their personal brand. In perhaps the most reported example of students benefitting from this policy, 85 scholarship football players at the University of Utah were provided brand new pickup trucks for their personal use for six-month blocks, renewable so long as the players retain their playing eligibility and remain enrolled at the university. Combined with the greater freedom athletes now have to transfer to other schools, the NIL has created an arms race to see which universities can facilitate the most lucrative offers for their athletes. This, in turn, is leading to a situation where the already rich and powerful schools are draining the others of their athletic talent. From the standpoint of fairness, is this situation better or worse than before, when student-athletes could not be compensated for their performance beyond their scholarships?
  2. The past year will go down as the hottest in recorded human history, and likely the hottest in the last 125,000 years. Many scientists now believe that keeping warming below the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold set by the United Nations Paris Accord will be nearly impossible, and so some sort of geoengineering project will be necessary to keep the climate system from spinning out of control. One such project would involve pumping massive amounts of sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere, which would reflect more sunlight back into space before it reaches the Earth’s surface. Of course, such a proposal comes with potential risks. In addition to turning the sky white, the plan might affect Earth’s water cycle, as well as redistribute disease-carrying mosquitoes across the globe. Other unknown effects are also possible. Weighed against the expected negative impacts of climate change, would it be moral to proceed with this geoengineering plan?
  3. In 2016, the company VML had a computer analyze 346 paintings by the 17th-century Dutch painter Rembrandt, using deep learning algorithms. The computer was then able to generate a unique “painting” (entitled “The Next Rembrandt”) that was stylistically indistinguishable from the real painter’s works. Suppose that an organization were to generate a work of art, based on the paintings of a contemporary artist. Morally, should the new artwork be considered to belong to the artist, with the copyright and any generated revenues belonging to her, or should the credit go to those who created the computer that generated the work?

  
  Submit an application

• Internship & Study Abroad Stipends

  To be considered for selection as a Richards Scholar, review the requirements below and submit your essay for:

  2024 Internships by Feb. 5, 2024 for the spring semester; April 8, 2024 for summer semester; Oct. 7, 2024 for fall semester.

  2024 Study Abroad programs by Feb. 5, 2024 for the spring break programs; April 8, 2024 for summer programs.

  The Richards Scholar stipend is named after Richard “Dick” Richards who was a successful attorney in Ogden; was actively involved in politics and was appointed by President Ronald Reagan as the National Chairman of the Republican Party. Thereafter was an international consultant on the world stage.

  Richard Richards was first and foremost an efficient, effective, and ethical leader—

  serving locally, nationally and globally. He demonstrated successful leadership in law, politics and international business; working with companies, countries and for the common good in a wide variety of industries.

  He believed that “leadership is not about a title or position; it is a way of being.” He believed that effective, ethical leaders “seek new ideas, new perspectives, different worldviews and see the value of diversity and inclusion as a way to exponentially change the status quo.”

  And most importantly, he believed that “everyone of us can be a leader, every one of us must be a leader.” He would be inviting you to become a leader, a leader that stands for something, that makes a difference, that maximizes the possibilities. He would challenge you to be an ethical leader in your profession, be a leader in your home and family, be a leader in your communities.

  You might ask, are leaders born or are they made? Leaders are neither born nor made, leaders choose to be leaders.”

  To apply for a $1000 stipend, write in 500 words or less why you have chosen to be a leader and how you will apply ethical leadership in your internship/study abroad  experience: with your fellow students, the community and people you will associate with and serve. And how you feel this experience can impact your life choices to lead in the future, in your career and community?

  Submit an application

• WSU Student Ethics Certificate Stipends

  To be eligible for the WSU Student Ethics Certificate Stipend, please do the following and submit an application:

  • Complete the requirements for the certificate (18 credited hours)
  • Select an artifact from your certificate program and write a 250 word or less abstract about that artifact.
  • Solicit a letter of recommendation from a faculty member of the certificate program and submit as part of the application process
  • Submit GPA transcript

  
  Submit an application