At the Center Capturing the lively discussions, presentations, and other events that make up the daily activities of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.
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Friday, Mar. 19, 2010 12:39 PM
SCU students created a video focused on undergraudate ethics education at the University. Besides featuring Center Associate Director Margaret R. McLean, the short film includes interviews of students, faculty, and staff involved in the goal of educating men and women for competence, conscience, and compassion.
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Thursday, Mar. 18, 2010 12:18 PM
Computer scientists have recently undermined our faith in the privacy-protecting power of anonymization, the name for techniques for protecting the privacy of individuals in large databases by deleting information like names and social security numbers. These scientists have demonstrated they can often 'reidentify' or 'deanonymize' individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease.
Paul Ohm, associate professor of law at University of Colorado, will lead a panel about what policymakers and lawyers must do to respond to the surprising failure of anonymization
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
6:00-7:15 pm panel discussion
8:00 pm reception Nobili Hall
Santa Clara University
Please join us at this free event
RSVP
This event is part of the "IT, Ethics, and the Law" series, sponsored by the Ethics Center, the High Tech Law Institute, and the Center for Science, Technology, and Society.
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Wednesday, Mar. 17, 2010 10:19 AM
"Promoting causes and goals is inherently social, and to be successful, there needs to be that feeling of participation, of networking, of growth, of ripple effects, all of which are a combination of tangible and intangible forces coming together to create a movement that people feel they are a part of. "
That was one of the conclusions Center Hackworth Fellow Courtney Meehan reached after serving on a panel at the Stanford Business School to evaluate projects by students in a class called "The Power of Technology." The projects were to "identify a cause, brainstorm how to represent it, and then, make it go viral."
Meehan, an SCU senior, wrote up her analysis of the projects on her blog, The Technological Citizen, Class Professor Jennifer Aaker was so impressed with her efforts that she invited Meehan to contribute to her upcoming book, The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change.
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Wednesday, Mar. 10, 2010 4:05 PM
The Center is now accepting applications for 2010-2011 health care ethics internships from Santa Clara University sophomores and juniors, and prospective and current graduate students.
Interns have the opportunity to shadow doctors, nurses, chaplains, and other health care professionals in local hospitals and hospice as they confront the ethical dilemmas that are part of their work. Next year will be the eighth year for the program.
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Tuesday, Mar. 9, 2010 10:30 AM
Recent scandals surrounding Representative Charles Rangel, Governor David Paterson, and Representative Eric Massa have brought government ethics back into the spotlight. After promising to "drain the swamp" in the Washington of the Bush years, Democrats now have their own set of wrongdoings to address. The Center's Emerging Issues Group discussed what individual traits of character and what systematic problems might lead to such frequent abuses of power.
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Monday, Mar. 8, 2010 4:49 PM
Tom Fox, who has been affiliated with the National Catholic Reporter since he was asked to be the publication's Viet Nam correspondent in the 1960s, talked about the value of an independent Catholic press at a presentation today for the Ethics Center. Fox talked about the inspiration for lay people to become involved in the Church through the Second Vatican Council, and NCR as a reflection of that movement.
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Friday, Mar. 5, 2010 1:18 PM
Courtney Meehan, blogger for TheTechnologicalCitizen, has been asked to serve on a panel at the Stanford University Business School evaluating the final student presentations for a course called "The Power of Social Technology."
Meehan, an SCU senior, is a Hackworth Fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Fellows are charged with developing programming around ethics for their fellow undergraduates. Meehan's blog, which is open to everyone, is being used in SCU classes including "Science, Technology, and Society," "Genetics and Society," and "English 1A."
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Wednesday, Mar. 3, 2010 2:37 PM
California Fair Political Practices Commission Director Ramon Porter talked recently with members of the Center's Public Sector Roundtable about gifts to public officials. Porter described new efforts by the commission to increase transparency about such gifts. He also reviewed "behested payments," which are donations to charitable and other organizations made at the behest of a public official.
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Tuesday, Mar. 2, 2010 9:12 AM
As interest grows in the possibility of addressing poverty by business activity at "the bottom of the pyramid," social entrepreneurs confront a set of ethical questions about marketing to these impoverished market segments.
Center Visiting Scholar Nicholas Santos, SJ, provided a framework for looking at this issue in a presentation last week with SCU Professor of Management Dennis Moberg. Here is his list of promises and threats:
Promise of inclusive capitalism
- Including those kept at the periphery of development
- Increase in employment opportunities
- Better standard of living
Threat of increased exploitation
- Unconscionable labor practices
- Predatory lending
- Tainted insurance
- Exorbitant rent-to-own transactions
- Vulnerabilities of the BoP consumers
- Desire of BoP consumers for better quality products and improved quality of life
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Monday, Mar. 1, 2010 3:05 PM
Tom Fox, editor of the National Catholic Reporter, addresses the question: In the Catholic Church, where, according to the catechism, “the task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church,” to what extent should the Catholic press be independent of church authority? Fox speaks March 8 at noon.
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Monday, Feb. 22, 2010 9:54 AM
Marketing strategy for impoverished market segments will be the focus of a presentation by Dennis Moberg, Gerald and Bonita Wilkinson Chair of Management and Ethics at SCU, and Nicholas Santos, S.J., visiting scholar at the Ethics Center, Wednesday, Feb. 24, at noon.
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Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010 11:19 AM
What impact has the recession had on white collar crime, and what can people to do avoid the temptations of engaging in unlawful business activities? Former Federal Prosecutor Hank Shea, now at the University of St. Thomas Law School, visited the Center's Business and Organizational Ethics Partnership this month to discuss the issues. Here he is interviewed by Center Executive Director Kirk O. Hanson.
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Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 3:54 PM
At the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, our work engages us in the most significant issues of our time. From health care reform to executive compensation to social networking, in the past year, we have explored the ethical dimensions of topics that are on the minds of Santa Clara University students and faculty, as well as businesspeople, health care professionals, government officials, educators, and others in the wider community. We invite you to review the past year at the Center, where ethics engages the world…
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Friday, Feb. 12, 2010 1:00 PM
Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict's recent encyclical, is, according to John Carr, executive director of the Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, "an ethical analysis of the global economic crisis and an essential moral framework on how to move forward as one human family." The implications of the encyclical for business, higher education, and the public will be the focus of a panel sponsored by the Ethics Center on Feb. 17, featuring Center Executive Director Kirk O. Hanson; SCU Associate Professor of Religious Studies Kristin Heyer; and Jim Stormes, SJ, Lo Schiavo Chair in Catholic Studies and Social Thought at University of San Francisco.
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Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010 4:40 PM
Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters visited the Ethics Center last week to discuss the state of the state. His comments are available as a podcast.
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Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010 2:10 PM
SCU Philosophy Professor William Prior presents "a manifesto" on How Not to Teach Ethics, Jan. 27, noon, in the University's Arts & Sciences Building.
Prior's research and teaching interests include ancient philosophy, ethical theory, the history of skepticism, and the philosophy of Wittgenstein. His publications include Unity and Development in Plato's Metaphysics (Open Court, 1985), Virtue and Knowledge (Routledge, 1991) and numerous articles. He has edited Socrates: Critical Assessments (Routledge, 1996, 4 v.) He is working on a book on the problem of the historical Socrates.
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Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010 3:39 PM
Students in Del Norte county had a chance to talk with author Francisco Jimenez, whose books, The Circuit, Breaking Through, and Reaching Out, are part of the Center's Character-Based Literacy curriculum, recently adopted by alternative schools in the county.
"This is the best stuff I've ever seen," Principal Suzie Dooley told the Daily Triplicate.
Jimenez talked with students by phone about the importance of education to his personal journey, from migrant work to a professorship at Santa Clara University.
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Friday, Jan. 15, 2010 12:40 PM
A talk last week by Alex Mikulich, research fellow at the Jesuit Institute for Social Research, applied Catholic social teaching to racial problems. Mikulich looked particularly at college parties with racial themes. Although students often defend their attendance at these parties by saying they are just having fun, Mikulich talked about more serious consequences of white people mocking those of other races. Mikulich is co-editor and contributing author for Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence (Orbis, 2007).
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Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010 2:14 PM
A cornerstone of President Obama’s health-care reform efforts is a national web of computerized Personal Health Records (PHRs), provided by a burgeoning industry of health-IT providers such as Google, Microsoft, and IBM. But before this industry can be fully built out, health providers, technologists, and legislators need to agree on a slew of privacy and security safeguards and standards.
“ Privacy Protections for Patient-Empowered Care,” a panel to be held January 20, 4:30 to 6 pm in the SCU Learning Commons, explores the issue with Paul Tang, MD, who sits on the privacy and security subcommittee of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, and Deven McGraw, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Privacy Project.
The presentation is part of the " IT, Ethics, and the Law" series, co-sponsored by the Ethics Center, the Center for Science, Technology, and Society, and the High Tech Law Institute, now in its ninth year.
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Monday, Jan. 11, 2010 4:12 PM
"Kaleidoscopeof Unity" is the theme of this year's state conference of the Community Day School Network, Jan. 17-18, in Sacramento. Tom Kostic, Southern California director of character education for the Center, will speak at the conference, which will focus on topics such as resiliency, bullying, gangs, drugs, effective teaching, and special education. Kostic has coordinated the implementation of the Center's Character-Based Literacy curriculum in Orange County and other districts throughout California.
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