Ethics symposium brings together students, professors

By: Meghan Kazer

Posted: 4/8/08

DePauw University's Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics hosted students and professors from schools across the country to discuss various ethical issues April 3-5. The symposium began Thursday night and ended Saturday afternoon.

The weekend kicked off with a keynote lecture from DePauw visiting professor John Roth. Three more lectures took place throughout the weekend, as well as student writing workshops.

Students nationwide were given the opportunity to submit creative and non-creative pieces of writing covering issues of ethics including human rights, environmental issues, ethics of international relations and religion, among other subjects.

The institute placed this call for papers on Blister.com, and received a large turnout with over 60 submissions, said fifth-year Prindle Institute for Ethics intern Paddy McShane. She helped plan and execute the weekend's activities alongside the Faculty Advising Committee, Professor of English and chair of the committee Martha Rainbolt and Linda Clute, the assistant director of the institute.

After six DePauw faculty members read the papers, 25 undergraduate students were selected from across the country to participate. Thirteen students were accepted from DePauw, which translates into a little over one-third of the students who submitted work, said junior participant Beth Towle.

The other 12 students came from universities across the country including Lewis University, Claremont-McKenna, Calvin College, University of North Florida, University of Tennessee, Azusa Pacific, St. Edward's and Biola. The 25 students were invited to attend the weekend of workshops, lectures and dinners, Towle said.

A fellow student recommended to Towle that she submit some work, she said.

McShane said the setup for the weekend was composed of three groups. On Saturday, the students workshopped each other's writing in two sessions, three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon. Writing topics included issues of ethics in the media, altruism and the application of ethics in every day life, Towle said.

Each group was led by a visiting professors from another university. Each professor then gave a lecture on his or her area. These lectures included discussion of the Japanese perspective on ethics, the ethics of an artist from the point of view of a creative writer and a lecture given by a former DePauw professor, Noah Lamos, on ethical theory.

"It was neat to see the diversity of topics," McShane said.

The lectures were open to the public, but the workshops were more individual, Towle said.

McShane said she was happy with the turnout.

"The room always felt full," she said.

There are hopes to continue the symposium in the future.

"I talked to [President Robert G. Bottoms], and he said that they plan on expanding [the symposium] next year," Towle said, adding that this will be in the form of more lectures. "They want to make it bigger every year."

McShane said there has been discussion of publishing the student submissions and compiling an anthology that would be kept at the institute. If it becomes a tradition, there could be years of student documentation in their archives, she said.

"We've been kind of slow getting [the institute] off the ground, because it is such a big endeavor," McShane said, adding that they have to be careful in choosing the right programs to start the institute off in a positive way.

"We really want to do things that add value to the campus," she said. She also added that she hopes the Ethics Symposium will be the start of a national tradition.