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The changing face of the Ethics Center

Major changes in staff, signaled by the departure of Steven Olson and the change in affiliation of Andy Fleming, characterized activity this spring and summer at the Center. During their five years with the Center, Olson and Fleming made significant contributions in shaping and administering the Center's business ethics and leadership and life-work programs. Over the years corporate demand for their leadership training workshops increased, culminating in their acceptance of management consultant positions with Synovus Corporation in Columbus, Georgia. Fleming will remain in close contact, however, in his new role as a Senior Fellow for Ethics and Servant Leadership.

During this same period a metamorphosis was taking place with other staff assignments. When Melissa Wiginton completed her one-year commitment with the Ethics and Servant Leadership program, moving to work with the Fund for Theological Education in August, Stacia Brown stepped in as interim director. Brown has since played a formative role in designing the exciting 1999-2000 programs and will also lead the national search to fill the directorship.

To assist Brown, Melissa Snarr was employed in June as a program associate. A graduate of Furman University (B.A., Political Science and Religion) and Candler School of Theology (M.Div), Snarr is currently a Ph.D candidate in Ethics and Society at Emory, where she is researching and writing her dissertation, "Reforming Democracy: Public Theology and the Campaign Finance Reform Movement."

Snarr formerly worked with the Youth Theology Institute as a researcher, program assistant, and internal evaluator helping design a program that encourages young adults to make connections between religion and service to the common good. She most recently served as adjunct faculty in Christian Ethics at Candler, teaching political ethics, religious political thought, and social movements.

After a lengthy recruitment for a replacement to assume Brown's event coordinator duties, Mary Sue Brookshire was offered the position beginning 1 August. Brookshire graduated summa cum laude from Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1991, where she earned BAs in Spanish and Sociology. In May 1999, she was awarded a Master of Divinity degree, magna cum laude, from Candler School of Theology. She was ordained to Christian ministry in June 1999 at Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia.

Before coming to Emory, Brookshire worked in Campus Ministry and Residence Life at Wake Forest. She also lived as a volunteer at Jubilee Partners, an intentional Christian community in Comer, Georgia that provides assistance to refugees. While at Candler, Brookshire served as the community life coordinator, planning programs for the student body including "A Conversation on Peacemaking" with President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In addition to the changes in E&SL staff and our welcoming the new event coordinator, two new positions were created to support Kathleen Kinlaw's work in clinical ethics. Aubre Jordan Wells was contracted under a Whitehead Foundation grant/subcontract with Georgia State to work as a research assistant for the Georgia Collaborative to Improve Care at the End of Life project. Transferring from the School of Nursing, Marian Osborne joined the staff as an administrative assistant for Kinlaw.

Osborne came to Atlanta in 1992 from New Jersey, where she attended Rutgers University of New Brunswick and Phillips Business School. Her Emory experience includes work for the Department of Pharmacology and for Psychiatry at Grady.

In July, Center secretary Shirley Allen accepted an offer to work for her church. In a staff restructuring, two new positions were created, an administrative assistant to the director and a receptionist/secretary position. Paul Ficklin-Alred was engaged as Dr. Fowler's administrative assistant.

Ficklin-Alred graduated from Shorter College with a B.A. in Speech and Communications. After spending two years in Misawa, Japan as an associate pastor and English teacher, he attended Golden Gate Seminary in Mill Valley, California, where he received an M.Div degree in 1989. He is an ordained minister and served for three years as the senior chaplain at Twin Cedars Youth Services, a treatment center for sexually abused adolescents, in LaGrange, Georgia.

[ Posted by James Fowler at September 1, 1999 01:53 PM | More General Center for Ethics News articles ]

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