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Center co-sponsors events series on Darfur crisis

By Edward Queen. Emory University’s commitment to being an ethically engaged institution means that faculty, students, staff, and administrators do not merely teach, research, and study about issues of ethical importance, but that they expend their energies trying to address them.

On one contemporary issue, the impending threat of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan, Professor Deborah Lipstadt asked: What are we doing at Emory? The answer was provided by a large swath of the Emory University community coming together to make its voices heard and to address the problems faced by the Darfurians.

Faculty from the Center for Ethics, Religion, Jewish, African, and Violence Studies joined with the Chaplain and the Office of Religious Life, and student groups from Amnesty International, to Hillel, to the Muslim Students Association (and many other members of the campus community) to undertake a series of programs on Darfur.

Beginning with an historical presentation on the U.S. response to the Armenian genocide and concluding with a interfaith religious service at Cannon Chapel, the programs also included a fast-a-thon to raise money for refugee relief, a poetry-slam, a presentation on the international response to the crisis, and a band party.

The centerpiece of the month-long series of events was a panel discussion in which experts who have worked in Darfur from journalism, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, CARE, and the C.D.C. presented to a large audience from Emory and the wider community on the situation in Darfur and what needed to be done.

All of these events provided attendees an opportunity to sign petitions and write letters to representatives of the Sudanese government demanding an end to the violence.

[ Posted by Edward Queen at December 1, 2004 10:18 AM | More Ethics and Servant Leadership articles | More Public Events articles ]

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