ethics news & views

Coming transitions in Center leadership

It has been my privilege to serve as Director of the Center for Ethics since summer of 1994. During these years the Center has grown significantly both in numbers of faculty and staff, and in its programming and outreach. We have been fortunate to have the support of members of both our internal and external boards, and we have been encouraged by the interest of the presidents, provosts and deans who have been leaders during this decade.

I want to express special thanks to John Wieland, who served as the founding Chairman of the Center’s Advisory Council, and helped us recruit and lead a strong external board. And my thanks also go to to Jeff Rosensweig, Associate Dean of the Goizueta School of Business, who ably serves as chair of our faculty Board of Advisors. With them, I am proud and grateful that the Center for Ethics has grown in service, teaching, and impact.

Now is the time for me to share with you that I am stepping down from my leadership role in the Center. I have been advised by my doctors that a less demanding lifestyle is in order. With that goal in mind, it is clear that this is the appropriate moment for me to end my tenure as director and to open the way for the search for the Center’s next leader.

There are some highlights of these past ten years that I want to celebrate: The gift from Mr. and Mrs. William B. Turner of Columbus, Georgia provides an endowment for the D. Abbott Turner Program in Ethics and Servant Leadership. Now worth $2.8 million, this support enables us to work intensively in leadership development with 30 students per year in our summer internships and our EASL Forum. Our annual budget, which has reached the $1.2 million level, makes possible the support of a faculty and staff of twelve persons. The annual Faculty Ethics Seminar, begun in 1992 and led since 1998 by Dr. John Banja, has engaged some 150 Emory faculty in fruitful two-week interdisciplinary ethics study.

Our work with bioethics and health care ethics represents the model we anticipate developing more fully with our other graduate professional schools. And our Healthcare Ethics Consortium of Georgia, under the leadership of Kathleen Kinlaw, links more than seventy healthcare systems, hospitals, and hospice programs across the state, and works to strengthen the ethics of medical practice, nursing care, and healthcare providers and systems. It is the largest organization of its kind in the nation. Our Ethics Minor in Emory College is growing and puts us in a league with Stanford and Yale as the only three undergraduate programs we know who offer this program.

These next years will see the Center for Ethics take an increasingly vital role in the life of Emory, which will be symbolized by a new state-of-the-art facility to be located near the heart of the main campus, and which will be completed in 2007. With Pierre Ferrari as Chair, and Lesley Ward and Peter Moister as Vice-Chairs of our Advisory Council, the Center is primed for growth in strength and impact.

This university has entered an exciting new period that underscores the importance of fresh and gifted leadership for the Center for Ethics. With President Wagner’s strong focus on ethics and values, the Center for Ethics should become more central in contributing to the shaping of Emory’s future. This is an opportune time to clarify the Center’s mission and goals, and to search for an executive director who can bring fresh gifts and vigor to the challenge of leading this organization in the realization of a fuller level of strength in teaching, research, service, and public influence.

During the spring the Center for Ethics will begin the search for the next executive director. Provost Earl Lewis has established that the search will be handled through his office, “in consultation with the leaders of the Center for Ethics, the Deans of the Schools and Colleges, and other stakeholders.” During this interim period, which began on February 1, Provost Lewis has confirmed that Kathleen Kinlaw will serve as Acting Director of the Center. Provost Lewis has appointed Dr. Bryan Noe, Acting Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, to lead a committee that will conduct a review of the Center.

With the growing momentum for ethics at Emory I look forward to the Center for Ethics’ future. And I look back with gratitude for all those who, by leadership, support and encouragement, have made possible this decade of its growth and contribution.

[ Posted by James Fowler at March 1, 2005 11:22 AM | More Fundraising & Development articles | More General Center for Ethics News articles ]

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