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.

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.

Center receives major grant for joint program with Woodruff Health Sciences

By Kathy Kinlaw, Arri Eisen, John Banja. Center for Ethics faculty focusing in bioethics are pleased to announce a two-year grant of $250,000 from the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Fund to support the deepening of our work in bioethics. The grant allows us to create a new collaborative model through a Program in Bioethics in which the Center for Ethics and the Woodruff Health Sciences Center are key partners.

Imlay Foundation Funds HCECG Website

As the Health Care Ethics Consortium of Georgia has grown from a grass root effort to a larger statewide organization, a need for timely communication and education about health care ethics has increased. Although HCECG has enjoyed a simple website for several years, it has provided us with only one-way communication. Advances in internet technology could provide us with so much more.

HCECG is pleased to announce that it has been awarded a $26,000 grant from the Imlay Foundation to develop its website and information technology. With this grant its hopes to upgrade its website, introduce a members-only feature, provide for online conference registration and membership renewal, improve data analysis, and provide an online discussion board. Implementation is expected by the end of 2004.

New funding, appointments in health science ethics

Three exciting announcements with our work in health care ethics:

1. Kathy Kinlaw and Karen Trotochaud received funding with Dr. Pamela Bachanas, Psychiatry, and Dr. Nicolas Krawiecki, Pediatrics, to develop and pilot test an advance care planning guide for health care professionals and families of children with life-limiting illness. The funding begins in October 2003. We believe this work will provide a unique contribution to national efforts in palliative and end of life care for children. The grant is award by the Emory Medical Care Foundation.

2. Rallying Points, a program of the national RWJ Last Acts coaltion, has awarded a grant to fund strategic planning for the statewide work in End of Life Care, of which the Center is a lead partner in a statewide partnership of organizations committed to improving end-of-life care. The Rallying Points certificate will bring Dr. Dan Tobin, from the Life Institute in Albany, NY and Kathy Brandt, from the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast, to Georgia to work with our statewide partnership in determining strategic direction for our effort in the state. Dr. Tobin's emphasis is on integrating end of life care conversations into mainstream medicine.

3. Kathy Kinlaw has been appointed to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Committee on Ethics and Genetics. Kinlaw will serve as a part of a new committee addressing Genomics and Ethics for the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In this role she will work with other ethicists in reviewing documents and proposals to the Institute.

Friends of the Center for Ethics 2002-2003

Full listing (Adobe Acrobat file).

Banja awarded grant, appointed to case management commission

John Banja was recently notified that a grant application he helped prepare will be funded by the Agency For Health Care Research and Quality. The grant was awarded to the Georgia Hospital Association, which subcontracted its implementation (as well as the original writing) to the Kerr L. White Institute for Health Services Research.

Carol Fuzzard to assist provost, ethics center in development

Carol Fuzzard graduated from Smith College in Northampton, MA in 1990 with an A.B in German and Religion. She received a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and studied theology at the University of Tuebingen in Germany from 1990-1992. In the fall of 1992 Carol was awarded a Woodruff Fellowship at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University and enrolled in the M.Div program. After graduating from Candler and working for the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games during the 1996 summer olympics, Carol returned to Candler and Emory as the Assistant Director at the Youth Theology Initiative funded by the Lilly Endowment. Since 1998 she has been in the University Development office at Emory.