In Memoriam: Vivian Weil
It is with great sorrow that we relay that Director Emeritus and Professor of Ethics Vivian Weil passed away May 7, 2016. She was a member of the Illinois Tech faculty for 44 years and a founding member and director of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions from 1987-2014. Weil was a great scholar and teacher, working theoretical problems of human action and responsibility and specializing on issues of professional responsibility, primarily in engineering and science. During her long and influential career, Vivian helped to pioneer one of the first engineering ethics courses taught in the United States and was a leading advocate for science and engineering ethics. She will be greatly missed by her colleagues, and her legacy will continue through the countless younger colleagues and students she mentored and the activities of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions.
Vivian was a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Science, on the Governing Board of the National Institute for Engineering Ethics, the Executive Committee of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, and a former member of the Committee on Computer Use in Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association. Most recently, Vivian received the Sterling Olmsted Award from the American Society of Engineering Education in 2013 recognizing her contributions to the development and teaching of ethics in engineering education.
Vivian is survived by her husband Irwin, her three children, Martin, Alice and Daniel, and her grandchildren, Anna and Nathan. A memorial service will be held on Friday, June 10 at 2:30 p.m. at the Alice Millar Chapel on Northwestern University’s campus at 1870 Sheridan Road, Evanston, Ill. We wish to extend our condolences to Vivian’s family and friends.
