ethics news & views

Wieland donates $300K toward new Center facility

In a surprise move at the Center for Ethics holiday party, outgoing board chair John Wieland presented the Center with a check for $300,000 for architectural expenses as it explores a dedicated facility.

As part of the evening's formal program Emory President James Wagner, Center for Ethics Executive Director James Fowler, and others honored Wieland for his eight years as chair of the Center's Advisory Council. The Center presented Wieland with a specially commissioned Fräbel glass sculpture of the Center for Ethics flame, which symbolizes the Center's mission of igniting the moral imagination of Twenty-First Century leaders.

The new facility will be located behind Bishops Hall along Dickey Drive. The Center is planning for 10,000 square feet on the northwest corner of the first and second floor. It will have a dedicated entrance and joint control of a 180 seat auditorium. The Center for Ethics currently occupies 2,000 square feet in the Dental Building (1462 Clifton).

John Wieland is Chief Creative Officer and Chairman of John Wieland Homes & Neighborhoods. His company builds in Atlanta, Charleston, Charlotte, Raleigh, and Nashville. Since its founding over 30 years ago, John Wieland Homes & Neighborhoods has built more than 23,000 homes in more than 200 different neighborhoods. The company currently employs 1100 people and thousands of trade contractors. Wieland and his company have received more than 300 awards for excellence, including the National Builder of the Year, the National Housing Quality Award, and most recently America’s Best Builder for 2005 presented by BUILDER Magazine and the National Association of Home Builders.

Changing board leadership and shifting responsibilities for Center staff

By Paul Ficklin-Alred. The Center for Ethics Advisory Council transitions to a new leadership this year. John Wieland, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods, completed his term as chair this summer, but will continue his relationship with the Center as a council member.

Wieland is a founding member of the Council and the first chair. Wieland joined the group in 1994 and is one of two members who have served on the Council during the entire ten-year history of the Center. He has led the Council since 1997.

Wieland is a graduate of Amherst College and the Harvard Business School. In 1993 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Amherst College. He is involved in a number of volunteer activities, including the Woodruff Arts Center 's High Museum of Art and the International Board of Habitat for Humanity, was the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and is an elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

A new leadership team will guide the Council. Pierre Ferrari, President of the Hot Fudge Social Venture Group, began his service as Advisory Council chair at the fall meeting. Ferrari joined the Council in 1999. Filling the roles of Vice Chairs are Peter Moister, President of Corbin Investment Holdings, and Lesley Ward, a private practice psychologist and consultant. Moister and Ward have been Council members since 2002.

Ferrari holds a masters degree in economics from the University of Cambridge and a MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a consultant in the field of Conscientious Commerce, with a particular focus on creating and nurturing the internal conditions that lead to enhanced socially responsible behavior among businesses. Ferrari's son graduated from Emory College in 2003.

EASL’s `Turner Scholars´ express group's servant leadership covenant through artwork

By Kate O'Dwyer Randall. Each new academic year, students in the Ethics and Servant Leadership Forum (or, the Turner Scholars) take on the task of creating a covenant with one another.

The covenant is a contract where group members together decide their shared goals and aspirations. They decide on values as a group they think servant leaders should commit to and be attentive to. They identify themselves in this group of servant leaders and strive to incorporate these concepts in their corporate work for the year.

Democrats’ dilemma & the nation’s:
Message from the Executive Director

By James W. Fowler. Recently I was asked, “What would you suggest to strengthen the Democratic Party in its efforts to reclaim influential leadership and electoral success?” The following is my answer:

The Democrats lost this election precisely because they and their candidates had no convincing way to address matters of religious faith. They were unable to model a public stance that, while not denying religious and cultural pluralism, articulates and models the substance, the values, and disciplines of a public faith. Ethics and just leadership depend upon such a values base.

Ethics living-learning community in second year

By Arri Eisen. My family and I are spending our second year living on the Clairmont Campus in a "living-learning community" called BASE (Bridging Academics, Service, and Ethics).

BASE is a collaborative project of the Center for Ethics, Campus Life, the Program in Science & Society, and the Emory Scholars. We live with 28 junior and senior undergraduates committed to connecting intellectual in-class work with everyday out-of-class life.

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.

EASL student creates get-out-the-vote program

By Meris M. Lutz. When College junior Wiatta Thomas first began her Ethics and Servant Leadership internship last summer at Atlanta Nine to Five, the local chapter of national activist organization Working Women, she never imagined she would be founding a voter-education program in low-income housing projects across the city.

“There’s a lot of [housing] projects in Atlanta, somewhere around 32,” Thomas said. “That’s a whole lot of people to reach.”

2005 faculty seminar: The ethics of wealth?

By John Banja. Each year, the Center for Ethics hosts a seminar for Emory faculty on some topic of considerable ethical interest. The 2005 topic will be “The Ethics of Money/The Ethics of Wealth.” The seminar will occur May 18-27, 2005.