Hackworth Research Grant Winners Winter 2003

The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics is pleased to announce its first winners of Hackworth Grants for Research and Teaching in Applied Ethics. The grants are funded by an endowment from Michael and Joan Hackworth to the Markkula Center.

The grant recipients are five faculty members and one student, all from Santa Clara University:

Jane Curry, Associate Professor, Political Science - Project: "Justice After the Fall: Considerations in Dealing With Abuses of the Past in New Regimes."
Professor Curry's research focuses on the concept of "transitional justice" or how places like South Africa, El Salvador, and the countries of Eastern Europe have attempted to account for violent, repressive pasts while moving forward into open, democratic futures. The $5,000 grant will cover the costs of student research assistance, travel to South Africa, and summer support.

Lawrence Nelson, Associate Professor (Adjunct), Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies. Project: "Toward a Concept of Constitutional Personhood"
Professor Nelson plans to use the Hackworth Grant for research and writing on three related topics: the moral status of the extracorporeal human embryo; moral respect for the disabled and forgoing treatment of conscious, incompetent personS; and a theory of constitutional personhood. The $5,000 in funds will be used for summer support and to cover the cost of books, materials, and photocopying.

David Popalisky, Assistant Professor, Theater and Dance - Project: "Barred from Life - a Performance Work"
Professor Popalisky will use the Hackworth Grant - in coordination with other SCU funding sources - to create a performance work that is to premiere in the Winter or Spring Quarters of 2004.The project will incorporate dance, vocals, music, video, and photomontage to create a "visceral connection to the essentially invisible human suffering that wrongful conviction engenders." Popalisky will work on the project with Kathleen Ridolfi, director of the Innocence Project at the SCU Law School. The $4,000 grant will be used to cover the cost of travel to interview the wrongly convicted, production expenses, and research assistance.

Deborah Garvey, Assistant Professor, Economics - Project: "Evaluating Immigrants' Educational Opportunities"
Professor Garvey's study will compare the "secondary school performance of immigrant and second-generation youth to native-born youth whose parents were also born in the United States." Her study of this topic is part of a broader research focus on factors over the life-cycle that affect immigrants' educational attainment. She will use the $1,855 grant for research assistance and travel to participate in a related academic conference.

Dennis Moberg, Professor, Management - Project: "Business Ethics Case Study on WorldCom"
Professor Moberg will use the Hackworth Grant to aid in the preparation of a case on WorldCom for a best-selling business ethics textbook. The $1,000 grant will cover the cost of research assistance in sorting through the vast volumes of data in the public domain about the questionable accounting practices of the telecommunications giant.

Kristin Love, Senior, Leavey School of Business - Project: "The Ethics of Non-Governmental Development Organizations in El Salvador"
The $760 grant will assist Ms. Love to travel to El Salvador this summer to examine how NGOs are integrated with the Salvadoran communities they intend to help and whether a better ethical framework should guide this integration. She will prepare a paper for presentation in Fall 2003.