Ethics Across the Curriculum
The discussion of matters such as ethics, justice, and social responsibility naturally find their home within certain academic departments and classrooms, especially in Philosophy and Theology classes. But delegating the task of ethics education and formation to one set of teachers and one particular set of classrooms should not be seen as the complete answer. University students (like most learners) learn best, and internalize that knowledge, when they see it in practice.
Ideally, then, in addition to formal classes on ethics, students should be educated by faculty who, across the university, model ethical behavior in their classrooms and demonstrate consideration of ethics and social justice in the contexts of their particular professional skills and career contexts.
This ideal is captured by the phrase Ethics Across the Curriculum: while a course on applied ethics taught by a philosopher might prove interesting to a student from a different discipline, having a professor from one's own area or discipline who models ethical awareness, reasoning skills, and sophistication in the use of relevant ethical concepts can have a profound, very practical influence on the moral development of the student. This is true whether the discipline be business, information management, engineering, agriculture, biomedical sciences or any other.
The Center for Ethics and Social Justice offers a variety of training workshops for university faculty who have not studied in formal university programs in ethics. We work with faculty to enhance their skills and provoke discussion and awareness of:
- The goals of ethics education,
- The strategies of ethics education in courses not focused upon ethics
- The ethics knowledge and skills that can help faculty feel more comfortable and teach ethics more effectively in their courses.
- The ethical issues that arise in the faculty members' different fields of work, with practical strategies to address them.
Some of the topics addressed during the Workshops are:
- Moral education: Can ethics be taught?
- An overview of the most common approaches to ethical thinking
- Strategies and concepts for moral problem-solving
- Ethical issues in the professions
- Issues of social justice
- Case-studies: how to prepare them, how to teach them
The Ethics Across the Curriculum Workshops are practically oriented, so that the participants will leave the Workshop with concrete 'products' to start using in their classes - usually a fully prepared unit for a course, or a set of case-studies with a strategy to use them.
Additionally, the Ethics Across the Curriculum Workshops have the benefit of bringing together faculty and staff from different departments and sectors of the University, opening their eyes to the matters other people are dealing with, expanding the horizons of all and building a spirit of comradeship.
Learning Outcomes for Ethics Across the Curriculum Programs
- Click here to read David Ozar's article, Learning Outcomes for Ethics Across the Curriculum Programs
The Ethics Across the Curriculum Workshops for the ITESM
Since May 2002, Loyola's Center for Ethics and Social Justice has conducted three intensive, ten-day Ethics Across the Curriculum Workshops for the faculty of the ITESM (Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, widely known as "el Tec"), one in Chicago and two in México.
Find out more about the Tec experience...
Contact us
For information on our Ethics Across the Curriculum Workshops contact us at 773.508.8349, or send an e-mail to ethics@luc.edu.