Santa Clara University

Cynthia Mertens, SCU professor of law, and Laura Nichols, SCU associate professor of sociology, have been involved for the last years with a national effort to understand and better address the experience of undocumented students at Jesuit universities. On Jan. 15, noon, in the Arts & Sciences Building, they will report on their findings -- with the assistance of Kristin Heyer, Bernard J. Hanley Professor of Religious Studies, who has written extensively on Catholic social ethics and immigration.

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Do honor codes improve the academic integrity of a college campus?  That's the question this week on The Big Q, an online dialog for undergraduates about the ethical issues in their everyday lives.

The question is a focus of the Center's work on campus this year.  SCU senior Aven Satre-Meloy, a Hackworth Fellow at the Center, has been working with his fellow students to develop a possible honor code for Santa Clara University.

Julia, a college student, is concerned to learn that her boyfriend Ricky regularly checks out pornographic websites on his computer.  That's the premise in the newest case study from the Center's Big Q project, an online dialog for undergrads about the ethical issues in their everyday lives.  To Julia, it feels like Ricky is cheating on her.  Ricky says it means nothing.

You can join the conversation online.  The best response from a student receives a $100 Amazon gift certificate.

Santa Clara University does not presently have an honor code although last year, Associated Student Government studied the issue, approved a draft code, and found that a majority of SCU undergraduates favored adopting an honor code.

SCU senior and Center Hackworth Fellow Aven Satre-Meloy is building on what was accomplished last year. Please come to this meeting to review the draft text of the code, hear results of a survey of students undertaken this fall, and more.
 

If you were to show the virtue of compassion using only your body, what would that look like?  Mary Zieber, an SCU senior and Hackworth Fellow at the Ethics Center, explored that question with a group of students, faculty, and staff today.  Using guided improvisation, the group "embodied" sympathy, empathy, and compassion.  Zieber is a theater major whose fellowship concentrates on ethics and the arts.

The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University is looking to fill a new position: Assistant Director of Campus Ethics. 

The assistant director shares in the core responsibilities of the Campus Ethics Program: creation and management of public events on campus; supervision of undergraduate fellows; management of a research grant program; and an assortment of related responsibilities with students, staff, and faculty across campus.

We're looking for someone with at least a master's degree in ethics or a related subject.  Apply now.

Getting college students to engage with the problem of cheating will be the focus of the Ethics Center's Big Q project for the next month.  A series of case studies illustrating common dilemmas that undergraduates encounter invite students to consider questions such as whether to tell on a classmate who is cheating and what effect cheating has on the character of the people involved.  Three $200 Amazon gift certificates will be awarded to the best undergraduate responses to the cases.  The Big Q's Facebook page will also offer polls on cheating as well as opportunities for further discussion. 

At SCU, these materials will be integrated into sessions on academic integrity that are offered to every incoming freshman during orientation.  Students at other colleges and universities can also use the resources and are eligible for the contest.

Christina Fialho, formerly a Hackworth student fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, has just won an Echoing Green Fellowship to support CIVIC, Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement. She and fellow activist Christina Mansfield, also named an Echoing Green Fellow, hope to "end the isolation of migrants in civil detention by building and strengthening community visitation programs across the United States." Prior to starting CIVIC, Fialho co-founded the first immigration detention visitation program in California.

Since 1987, Echoing reen has funded more than 500 fellowships for promising social entrepreneurs. Here is their description of Fialho and Mansfield's project:

At this very moment, more than 32,000 men, women, and children are detained by the U.S. government in jails and prisons for not having proper documentation. While lacking papers is not a crime, immigrants are often imprisoned for months--sometimes years--with little connection to the outside world. While over 80 percent of detained immigrants are unrepresented by legal counsel, many also are denied access to family and community support. CIVIC ends the isolation and abuse of persons in immigration detention by building and strengthening community visitation programs across the United States.

The Center's Hackworth Fellowships support SCU students to provide ethics programming for their peers.

Protests against a talk by Kathleen Sebelius at Georgetown University, against an honorary degree for Carlos Slim at George Washington University, and against remarks by Tony Blair at Colby College are only the highlights of this year's controversies about commencement speakers. John Degioia, president of Georgetown, addressed the issues behind these protests in an address June 1.

The Ethics Center's Big Q project takes up these issues in its biweekly case study on ethical issues facing undergraduates in their everyday lives.  The case introduces Ryan, a member of his campus' sustainability club, who is unhappy with the university's decision to invite a known polluter as a commencement speaker.  The best student response to the case wins a $100 Amazon gift certificate.

Photo by ragesoss available under a Creative Commons license.

Inviting all Santa Clara University poets to share their proudest Bronco moment at a Poetry Slam, Monday, May 21, 9 p.m., in the Bronco. 

The slam is the latest event inthe Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Big Q project, which encourages students to reflect on the ethical issues in their everyday lives. 

Interested in performing: E-mail jteeny@scu.edu.