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.

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 launches 'Student Think Tank' to plan, implement campus ethics events

This year the Center for Ethics will experiment with a new approach to its public events. In April the Center recruited a dozen student leaders to help it plan and implement undergraduate-oriented public programming for the 2004-2005 academic year.

Recruited students were drawn from:

• Ethics and Servant Leadership;
• Bridging Academics, Service, and Ethics;
• Science and Society; and
• Emory Living Wage Coalition (originally an EASL service project).

The diverse group of undergraduates also actively participates in student government and campus activist and service groups. At its initial May meeting, the Think Tank decided to focus its energies this year on the ethics of power, beauty/consumerism, professional ethics, and sexual orientation. Anticipated event formats will likely include film screenings, discussion forums, and student/faculty panels.

The group hopes to develop a major event tentatively titled “Sex, Shopping, and Self” for the spring semester.

Additional film screenings, workshops, and panels planned with the Student Think Tank will be publicized on campus and on the Center for Ethics’ website throughout the year.

Emory releases draft Code of Ethics

President James Wagner today released a draft version of Emory's proposed Code of Ethics. It is requested that feedback on the draft statement be sent to Gary Hauk, Secretary of the University, before September 15.

Employee Council wants to meet 'One on One'

By Eric Rangus

As part of its diversity initiative, the Employee Council has teamed with the Center for Ethics to train council members to practice community by holding face-to-face, informal-yet-informative meetings with fellow employees. The intent is to build and strengthen personal relationships through unvarnished conversation.

The program is called One on Ones, and it is a grass roots method to approaching diversity and workplace chemistry not through large, broad-based programming but instead through intimate, specific discussion aimed at establishing or deepening a public relationship.

Subtitled "Community Building Through Relational Meetings," the One on One is a concept drawn from the work of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization. Although initiated by one person--it can be a junior or senior employee--One on Ones are not question and answer sessions; they are dialogues. Each participant converses openly, and that frankness, hopefully, leads to more.

Kinlaw Honored with Inaugural Award

In an surprise announcement Kathy Kinlaw--Executive Director for the Health Care Ethics Consortium of Georgia--was honored with presentation of the first Heroes in Healthcare Ethics Award.

Kinlaw is credited with the initially development of the Health Care Ethics Consortium of Georgia in the early 1990’s. Her work with health care organizations across Georgia and their ethics committees has made her a frequently sought-after speaker and presenter. She is also recognized for her work to further bioethics education for medical students, especially those at Emory University School of Medicine.

Kinlaw was presented with a glass sculpture from Fräbel Studio of Atlanta that was commissioned by HCECG and designed is such a way to suggest holding ethics to the highest standard. The curvature of the three supporting glass rods holding the blue sphere represents the achievement of this highest standard.

The Heroes in Health Care Ethics Award is an annual award to be given to an individual or group associated with an HCECG member organization in recognition of exemplary achievements in the field of health care ethics. The award is underwritten by a gift from King and Spalding.

Center's website launches world ethics news webfeed

Up-to-date news about ethics can be hard to find, and most people don't have the time to surf the internet trying to find it.

That's why the Center for Ethics is now offering a constantly updated ethics news webfeed. Powered by Moreover Technologies, the new service will pool together the ten most recent ethics news stories from newspaper websites all over the world. New stories are added to the top of the list every hour.

To access the news webfeed, click here.

Kenneth Cole Foundation donates $600K to create Community Building and Social Change program

Last fall, the Kenneth Cole Foundation committed support to Emory to establish a program to train Emory students in comprehensive community-building skills. Fashion industry executive Kenneth Cole, a trustee of the Kenneth Cole Foundation and founder, president and chief executive officer of Kenneth Cole Productions Inc., has long combined social-consciousness messages in marketing his products, and now he will help Emory University train agents for social change through his foundation.

Testimony before the House State Government Committee

Editor's note: As many of you know, Dr. Raymond Gangarosa, our Research Fellow in Public Health, was instrumental in forming the legal strategy for the lawsuits against the tobacco industry. Currently, he is writing on the theoretical foundations for new approaches to public health. Dr. Gangarosa gives us an important glimpse into the shape of his current work in the following excepts of his testimony to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

Testimony before the House State Government Committee
October 11, 2001
Harrisburg, PA

Got scruples?

Over the past few months, several people have requested an online forum to discuss ethical issues, raise questions, and just stay in touch with other folks interested in the work of the Center for Ethics.

That's why we're now offering "Scruples," a listserv discussion forum that provides a virtual salon for discussion of everything ethics.

Welcome to our first email-only newsletter

For some time, the Center for Ethics has published ethics news & views as a semiannual, print publication. But there is much that goes on between our January and September editions.

One proposed solution has been to publish more frequently, say once a month or once a quarter. While there would certainly be plenty to say, the cost in time and resources is prohibitive at this point, and the ethics of printing on more paper need to be taken into account too.

Touching up our public face: Center to start email newsletter, premiers ethics flame

The Center for Ethics made significant progress last semester toward its goal of gearing up for ethics leadership in the new millennium with two sets of focus groups, a revised mission statement, and a new graphic: the ethics flame.

Jim Fowler receives honorary doctorate from University of Edinburgh

Center Director James Fowler traveled to Scotland this summer where on 16 July he was awarded the Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa, by the University of Edinburgh. In presenting Fowler, Professor Duncan B. Forrester, dean of divinity, said "Professor Fowler's identification of certain 'stages of faith' related to human growth and development is internationally recognized as a helpful and productive way of understanding the spiritual journeys of those who identify with a wide variety of religious traditions and with none....It is considered by man to stand alongside Erikson's work on emotional development and Kohlberg's on moral development."

[ Posted by Chance Hunter on September 01, 1999 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) ]

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.

[ Posted by James Fowler on September 01, 1999 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) ]

Ethics Center welcomes new staff members

The Ethics Center is proud to welcome two outstanding women to our professional staff. Stacia Brown joined the Ethics Center team this summer as manager of special events and the Ethics Library and Resource Center. Brown earned her B.A., summa cum laude, in Religion from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California in 1994. In May 1998, she was awarded a Master's of Divinity degree (summa cum laude) and a Certificate in Women's Studies from Emory.

[ Posted by Donna Price on September 02, 1998 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) ]