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Center Activities
Fordham University’s Center for Ethics Education symposium series examines the influences of religious, legal, medical, philosophical, and social science traditions on moral thought and action. The idea of the “dignity of human persons” has found expression in a multitude of traditions—secular, humanistic, and religious. These symposia highlight those aspects of religious and secular thought that oblige a community of scholars to respect and to protect the dignity and freedom of persons. The goals of these symposia are: first, to open discussions among different religious groups and communities (e.g., Christian, Jewish, Muslim); second, to identify methods of inquiry among scientists that seek to insure that scientific research and experimentation reflect the values of communities and their vulnerable participants and caregivers. To meet these goals, the Center has sponsored numerous conferences and symposia, including:
| Ethics Center Fellow Lecture Series |
The Center also sponsors an Ethics Fellow Lecture Series. The Ethics Fellow Lecture Series was developed to promote a scholarly discussion of current ethical and moral issues in society. The Advisory Board of the Center for Ethics Education selects internationally renowned scholars for its Ethics Center Fellows.
In 2004, the Center chose the theme of "Research Ethics" and selected three fellows to deliver lectures.
In 2005, the Center chose the theme of "Just Allocation of Health Care Resources" and selected two fellows to deliver lectures.
View our Ethics Center Fellows Lecture Series page.
View our Events page for the latest information about exciting lectures and conferences.
| Ethics Education Workshops |
Since its inception, the Center has sponsored workshops on how to conduct ethically responsible research for Fordham administrators, faculty, institutional review board members, graduate and undergraduate students. The Center has also conducted national workshops for physicians and mental health practitioners who are involved in the conduct of experimental treatments to improve physical and mental health. The Fordham University Ethics Education workshops can help universities and research institutions meet the new PHS Policy on Instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research. Investigators and administrators who are interested in a Fordham sponsored half-day or full-day ethics workshop for their institution should contact the Center.
Workshops cover a large range of issues, including: "HIPAA and Research", "The New APA Ethics Code: What You Need to Know" "Ethically Responsible Research with Multicultural Populations," "Social Research from a Child's Perspective," "Mentoring Faculty-Student Research Collaborations in the Social & Physical Sciences," and "Ethical Issues in Medical Emergency Room Research." A valuable aspect of the workshops is a focus on engaging community members and prospective participants and their families in designing informed consent, confidentiality, and other ethical procedures in medical and mental health research.
The curricula developed for these workshops have become models for universities around the country and are featured on several websites sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. A unique component of the Center's ethics workshop curricula is its original case studies designed to provide in-depth understanding of important ethical concerns. Ethically challenging situations described in case studies include "Medical research on women with suspected ectopic pregnancy," "The use of Hispanic and African Folktales to teach children grammar," "Treating anxiety in chronically ill elders," "Evaluating an outpatient group therapy treatment for suicidal adults," "Studying advanced life support as a treatment for cardiac arrest," "Studying post-traumatic stress disorder in adolescent rape victims," and "Evaluating prevention programs for teens whose siblings have been the victim of community violence."
The Center sponsors the Fordham University Faculty Seminar composed of faculty from departments of psychology, sociology, philosophy, theology, physics, history, and African American studies. This seminar has achieved great success over the past 7 years in sparking interdisciplinary debate on moral values, fostering inter-departmental faculty collaborations in ethics teaching and scholarship, and bringing to the Fordham community nationally recognized scholars who have given master lectures and seminars on issues of ethical concern to faculty and students. The Center and the Fordham Faculty on Ethics has a history of sponsoring outstanding conferences and workshops on ethics as a global problematic featuring guest lecturers such as Stephanie Bird, Sissila Bok, Karen Lebazq, Richard Shweder, Ross Thompson, Manual Casas, Kai Erikson, and Hans Kung.
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