The Wonders of the World Wide Web or
How a Philosophy Professor from Santa Clara University Wound
Up on Radio Free Burma
By Miriam Schulman
Because the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Web site has
been active since the prehistoric (at least by Internet standards)
year of 1995, we've had an opportunity to see how the Internet
puts searchers together with information in a variety of surprising
ways. Almost 10,000 Web pages link to the Ethics Center site,
bringing people from all over the world to our materials. In
Google, Center resources are among the first searchers will
encounter for terms including business ethics, medical ethics,
technology ethics, government ethics, and so forth.
It's particularly satisfying when we offer materials of real
use to people in real need. A few examples:
Reflections on heroism lead to a gig on Radio Free Burma
SCU Associate Professor of Philosophy Scott LaBarge has been
a member of the Center's Emerging Issues Group, a gathering
of staff, scholars, and Advisory Board members who meet weekly
to discuss ethics in the news. LaBarge's field of study is classical
philosophy, particularly notions of heroism. In 2005, we prevailed
upon him to address the modern implications of that concept
for our annual National
Ethics Agenda, a program where we lay out the most crucial
issues facing Americans. His talk, in which he eloquently argued
that "the critical moral contribution of heroes is the
expansion of our sense of possibility," was posted on our
Web site. Not long after, LaBarge received a call from a reporter
for Radio Free Burma. The reporter explained that his country
(now called Myanmar by the ruling military junta) was desperate
for stories of heroism that might help citizens resist the current
repressive regime. His interview with LaBarge was broadcast
to Burmese people hungry for the perspectives LaBarge could
offer.
The Library of Congress collects Center resources on the crisis
in Darfur
Michael Kevane, SCU professor of economics, has been interested
in Sudan since 1985, when he spent a year there as a research
intern with PLAN International. He co-edited the book, Kordofan
Invaded, about the area, and served as president of the Sudan
Studies Association from 2002-2005. Kevane was instrumental
in getting the Ethics Center's Global Leadership and Ethics
Program involved in campus discussion of Darfur and in co-sponsoring
a gathering of Sudan
scholars from across the United States to discuss the crisis.
When we began posting the fruits of this work on the Center's
Web site, we received the following request:
The African Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division
of the United States Library of Congress has selected your
Web site for inclusion in the historic collection of Internet
materials related to the Crisis in Darfur, Sudan....The Library
of Congress or its agent will engage in the collection of
content from your Web site at regular intervals….The
Library also wishes to make the collection available to offsite
researchers by hosting the collection on the Library's public
access Web site. The Library hopes that you share its vision
of preserving Web materials about the Crisis in Darfur, Sudan,
by permitting researchers from across the world to access
them.
Feedback sparks a discussion of "pandemic ethics"
The Web site also had a role to play in fostering public reflection
on ethical issues confronting health care institutions in the
event of a pandemic. A member of a hospital ethics committee
in Seattle found the site while her committee was preparing
to confront this major issue, and she contacted us. "The
model of caring for patients in a disaster will be greatly different
from the way we typically serve our sick and healthy community,"
she wrote. "This will have a huge impact physically and
emotionally on our staff. Do you have any advice for us?"
We posted the response, Pandemic
Ethics," from Director of Biotechnology and Health
Care Ethics Margaret R. McLean, who laid out some of the issues
health care organizations would confront. That, in turn, inspired
feedback from another health care institution:
Thank you for your article "Pandemic Ethics." I
am doing a literature search in preparation for a presentation
to a regional group of Chief Nursing Officers regarding disaster
planning and their roles. One of the areas I have been asked
to cover is pertinent to the ethics involved. So many institutions
are struggling with these questions.
Subsequently, McLean herself was asked to serve on a Santa
Clara County Public Health Department task force preparing for
a possible flu epidemic.
Architects of Peace inspire artists, teachers, and atheletes
No materials on our site have generated more intriguing requests
that the magnificent Architects
of Peace photos created by Center Fellow Michael Collopy.
Collopy developed this collection of portraits to honor people-from
Mother Teresa to Mikhail Gorbachev-who, he believes, have made
major contributions to world peace. Each portrait is accompanied
by an essay written by the architect and curriculum materials
for teachers and students exploring peacemaking and peacemakers.
In the first year the materials were posted, they were viewed
more than 200,000 times The project has inspired such offshoots
as a Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Public Library project to enlarge
several for a display on reading and the use of Cesar Chavez'
image by an artist creating a mural of historical figures. The
National Collegiate Athletic Association requested Jesse Jackson's
photograph as part of the NCAA's "100 Most Influential
Student-Athletes." The Architects of Peace materials are
also included in the Kraus Curriculum Library, a searchable
database of curriculum resources for educators. Perhaps the
best summary of Collopy's contribution came from a reader in
India: "This web site is a great contribution for the global
peace. I pray for all your success."
Miriam Schulman is the communications director of the Markkula
Center for Applied Ethics.
September 2006
Video Presentation
More on the Center's Web Site From Journalist Suzanne Shaw
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