Fall 2021 Center for Ethics Schedule of Events
Faculty & Staff Discussion of Sonia Shah Reading
Friday, September 10 at 2 p.m.
GQ Annex, Seegers Union
This event is closed to the general public.
Faculty and staff are invited to join a discussion of the chapter “Blame” from Sonia Shah’s book, Pandemic in advance of Shah’s visit to campus later in September [see September 22 event information below]. Faculty and staff who do not have a copy of the book may request a copy of the chapter by completing an online form.
Alumni Weekend Virtual Panel
Friday, September 17 at 2 p.m.
Alumni Registration Link; Zoom information to follow
This alumni panel will highlight members of the alumni community who have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic through their work in the medical community, including their research on treatment and vaccines and their observation of changes to the ways we deliver education and conduct business. This forum will provide space to reflect and will serve as an important connection between alumni, faculty, staff and students as we spend the next year exploring some of the ethical questions that arise when we pause to think about the global pandemic.
Sonia Shah, Author
“An Evening with Sonia Shah: People and Microbes on the Move in the Era of Climate Change”
Wednesday, September 22 at 7 p.m.
Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
Sonia Shah is a science journalist and prize-winning author of critically acclaimed books on science, politics and human rights. Her works include, The Next Great Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move, which explores our centuries-long assumptions about migration through science, history and reporting, predicting its lifesaving power in the face of climate change, as well as Pandemic: Tracking Contagions from Cholera to Coronaviruses and Beyond and The Fever.
Her writing on science, politics and human rights has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Scientific American and elsewhere and has been featured on CNN, RadioLab, Fresh Air and TED.com, where her talk, “Three Reasons We Still Haven’t Gotten Rid of Malaria” has been viewed by over 1m people around the world.
Shah holds a bachelors in journalism, philosophy and neuroscience from Oberlin College.
Arthur Brooks, Social Scientist
“Finding Happiness in Times of COVID”
Thursday, October 14 at 7 p.m.
Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
Arthur C. Brooks is the William Henry Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. Before joining the Harvard faculty in July of 2019, he served for ten years as president of the Washington, D.C.- based American Enterprise Institute (AEI), one of the world’s leading think tanks.
Brooks is the author of 11 books—including the national bestsellers “Love Your Enemies” and “The Conservative Heart”—and has published dozens of academic journal articles and the textbook “Social Entrepreneurship” (2008). He is a columnist for The Atlantic, host of the podcast “The Art of Happiness with Arthur Brooks” and subject of the 2019 documentary film “The Pursuit,” which Variety named as one of the “Best Documentaries on Netflix” in August 2019.
Previously, Brooks was the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government at Syracuse University, where he taught economics and social entrepreneurship. Prior to his work in academia and public policy, he spent 12 years as a professional French hornist in the United States and Spain.
Brooks holds a Ph.D. and an M.Phil. in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He also holds an masters in economics from Florida Atlantic University and a bachelors in economics from Thomas Edison State College.
This event is co-sponsored by the Department of Accounting, Business, Economics and Finance; the Office of the President; and the Endowment for Political Discourse and Dialogue.
Dan Royles, Historian
“Don’t We Die Too?: Race and Sexuality in the Early AIDS Crisis”
Thursday, October 21; at 7 p.m
Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
HIV/AIDS has disproportionately affected Black communities in the United States since the disease was first identified by doctors in 1981. Today, African Americans account for almost 42 percent of new HIV diagnoses each year, despite being only 13 percent of the U.S. population. While racial disparities in the HIV/AIDS epidemic are well documented, the history of African American responses to the disease have been largely ignored in emerging narratives of AIDS and AIDS activism in the United States. This talk will trace early efforts to respond to AIDS in Philadelphia's African American community and the ways that work was complicated by struggles over race, sexuality and urban space in the City of Brotherly Love.
Dan Royles is an assistant professor of history at Florida International University. He is the author of To Make the Wounded Whole: The African American Struggle against HIV/AIDS and is working on a multi-year study for the National Park Service on the history of anti-Black violence in the United States and its territories since 1500 as well as a social, cultural and intellectual biography of Claude Brown, author of the celebrated book Manchild in the Promised Land.
The Center for Ethics is proud to co-sponsor this talk with the “40 Years of HIV/AIDS Activism: Perspectives from Around the Globe” lecture series and the Shankweiler Scholar Honors Program.
Betsey Stevenson, Economist
Thursday, November 4; at 7 p.m
Virtual Event Via Zoom
A discussion with Dr. Betsey Stevenson, on why this pandemic recession has hit women harder than any other recession. Dr. Stevenson will also explain how the recession impacted parents and how people are changing their attitudes about work and what that means for the recovery. She will help us answer the question of "Why are so many people quitting their jobs?"
Betsey Stevenson is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Michigan. She is a faculty research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research, a fellow of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich, and visiting Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. She served as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2013 to 2015 where she advised President Obama on social policy, labor market, and trade issues. She served as the Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor from 2010 to 2011. More recently she served on the Biden-Harris Transition team assisting with the agency review and policy development for the U.S. Treasury.
Dr. Stevenson has published widely in leading economics journals about the labor market and the impact of public policies on outcomes both in the labor market and for families. Her research explores women’s labor market experiences, the economic forces shaping the modern family, and how these labor market experiences and economic forces on the family influence each other. She is the co-host of the podcast Think Like an Economist and is the co-author of a Principles of Economics textbook. Her analysis of economic data and the economy are frequently covered in both print and television media.
Dr. Stevenson earned a B.A. in economics and mathematics from Wellesley College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.
Spring 2022 Events
Mohsin Hamid
Event Postponed Due to Covid-19
Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
Event postponed due to COVID-19.
Artists Quarantining with Their Work
November 17 – February 3, 2022
Martin Art Gallery Exhibit
The panel discussion, scheduled to be moderated by guest curator, Stephen Maine, was canceled due to COVID-19.
Documentary 5B Discussion with the Film Producers
Friday, February 25, 2022, at 2 p.m.
Zoom
5B is the inspirational story of everyday heroes, nurses and caregivers who took extraordinary action to comfort, protect and care for the patients of the first AIDS ward unit in the United States. 5B is stirringly told through first-person testimony of these nurses and caregivers who built Ward 5B in 1983 at San Francisco General Hospital, their patients, loved ones and staff who volunteered to create care practices based in humanity and holistic well-being during a time of great uncertainty. The result is an uplifting yet candid and bittersweet monument to a pivotal moment in American history and a celebration of quiet heroes, nurses and caregivers worthy of renewed recognition.
In advance of the discussion with filmmakers, the film can be viewed here:
https://tubitv.com/movies/552763/5b?start=true
Art Caplan Lecture
Wednesday, March 23, 2022, at 7 p.m.
This event has changed from in-person to a Zoom webinar; Zoom
Currently the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor and founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. Prior to coming to NYU, Dr. Caplan was the Sidney D. Caplan Professor of Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia, where he created the Center for Bioethics and the Department of Medical Ethics. He has also taught at the University of Minnesota, where he founded the Center for Biomedical Ethics; the University of Pittsburgh; and Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he is co-directing an advisory group on sports and recreation for the US Conference of Mayors, created a working group on coronavirus vaccine challenge studies, developed an ethical framework for distributing drugs and vaccines for J&J, and helped develop rationing policies for NYU Langone Health and many other health systems. He is a member of the WHO advisory committee on Covid-19, ethics and experimental drugs/vaccines, and he helped set policy for WIRB/WCG for research studies.
Forum on Women’s Leadership During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Tuesday, April 12, 2022, at 7 p.m.
Miller Forum, Moyer Hall
This event will feature a talk by Barbara Crossette based on her Ms. Magazine article on the topic, and a panel discussion hosted by Muhlenberg College President Kathleen Harring.
Co-sponsored with the Office of the President.
Dana Senior Forum
April 20 – 21, 2022
