Ways of Knowing
in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Humanities and Social Research in the Real World

Wednesday, April 8, 2015 from 3:00 – 4:30 pm
CSU Student Center, Rooms 313-315

Presider:
Gregory Sadlek, CLASS Dean

Presenters:
Phil Manning, Department of Sociology and Criminology
Allyson Robichaud, Department of Philosophy & Comparative Religion

Phil Manning
Department of Sociology and Criminology
The Game Changer and Specialization
This talk describes a collaborative project to protect passwords used in a variety of electronic devices using a variety of games rather than alpha-numeric codes. The challenge for researchers trying to protect our cyber-security is to devise a system for passwords that is both mathematically secure and easy for users to remember. The first part of the talk considers both the project itself and the ways in which the initial idea was transformed into a testable product. The second part of the talk answers the more general question of the interplay between specialized knowledge and innovation in the development of social research.

Allyson Robichaud
Department of Philosophy & Comparative Religion
Medical Decision-Making for Patients Without Proxies: The Effect of Personal Experience in the Deliberative Process
The number of admissions to hospital of patients without a proxy decision maker is rising and institutions are formulating and operationalizing policies whereby decisions can be made in a timely and ethically sound fashion. In this presentation, the policy for The University Hospitals Case Medical Center will be discussed and questions raised with respect to how it is carried out. Specifically, the concern that visiting/viewing critically ill patients may bias Ethics Committee community members during the decision-making deliberative process will be addressed.