The Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions is dedicated to studying a broad range of ethical issues in American public life. Interdisciplinary in aim, the Center uses the full resources of Indiana University to initiate research and teaching across traditional academic boundaries.
The Poynter Center promotes moral deliberation about developments in science and technology, the provision of health care, the aims of higher education, the duties of corporate responsibility, and the challenges of democratic life and culture. Critical reflection about the meaning of rights, community, justice, diversity, power, and virtue provide the more general terms for much of the Center's inquiry.
The Poynter Center sponsors collaborative work among faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences and professional schools, along with members of the wider community. Initiatives include a publication series, national seminars, interdisciplinary faculty fellowships, teaching and research workshops, symposia with visiting lecturers, and seminars with local professionals. Focusing on theory and practice, the Center's strengths include work in bioethics; professional ethics; religion, culture, and society; research ethics; and teaching ethics in the sciences and humanities.
The Center was established in 1972 with funding from the late Nelson Poynter. Mr. Poynter, an alumnus of Indiana University, was the chairman of the board of the Times Publishing Company, which publishes the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly.
The founding director was William Lee Miller, who served from 1972-1982. David H. Smith served as director from 1982 until his retirement in 2003, when Richard B. Miller became director.
During the 2003-2004 academic year, the Poynter Center is sponsoring five IU faculty fellows in an interdisciplinary seminar on the subject of "Democracy and Dissent." The seminar will meet ten times during the year, focusing on theoretical and practical dimensions of the theme. Each fellow will produce an article that draws on their year's research.
The seminar participants are from a variety of disciplines and experience.
Robert L. Ivie is Professor of Communication and Culture and a member of the faculties in American Studies and Cultural Studies. His teaching and research interests focus on rhetoric as a mode of political critique and cultural production, with particular emphasis on democracy and the problem of war. Ivie serves as founding editor of Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, a new journal of the National Communication Association published by Routledge.
Ann Mongoven is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University. Her research has addressed bioethical issues (particularly the ethics of organ donation and transplantation), gender theory, and conceptions of civic virtue. She is completing a monograph entitled Just Love: The Transformation of Civic Virtue, which explores the interface between religious studies, ethical theory, and political theory, and considers how Christian interpretations of neighbor-love influence American political theory and practice.
John H. Stanfield II is a Professor of African- American and African Diaspora Studies. He is a historical sociologist of knowledge interested in questions regarding race, racism, and anti-racism in knowledge-producing institutions and communities such as the sciences, universities, and faith communities; and in ways of knowing, such as logics of inquiries, common sense, folklore, and oral traditions.
Jeffrey Wasserstrom is a Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the Director of Indiana University's East Asian Studies Center. He has published widely, mostly on China, in academic venues as well as in newspapers (such as the Nation, Dissent, the international edition of Newsweek, and the American Scholar). His previous works on the topic of dissent include three books: Student Protest in Twentieth-Century China; Protest and Political Culture in Modern China; and Human Rights and Revolutions. He served as a consultant for "The Gate of Heavenly Peace," a documentary on China's Tiananmen protests of 1989 which was shown on PBS and won a Peabody Award.
David C. Williams graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, clerked for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and taught at Cornell Law School before coming to IU in 1992. His scholarship focuses on the constitutional treatment of cultural difference and resistance, especially in the contexts of Indian Law and the right of revolution. In 2003, Yale University Press published his book The Mythic Meanings of the Second Amendment: Taming Political Violence in a Constitutional Republic. In 2001, the law school named him its first John S. Hastings Professor of Law, and in 2002-2003, he delivered the University Distinguished Research Lecture.
In 2002 David H. Smith convened a national seminar funded by the IU Center on Philanthropy that will produce an interdisciplinary collection of essays on the moral, ethical and social issues that arise when persons individually or collectively try to do good things for each other.
The Poynter Center annually sponsors a team of undergraduates in the National Ethics Bowl competition, which is held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. In 2003 the Poynter Center team placed second. The competition involves having a team study cases and prepare to answer questions about the ethical issues raised in the cases.
Each year, the Center sponsors a series of interdisciplinary faculty seminars on topics in ethics and collaborates with other departments and schools in bringing public speakers to the IU Bloomington campus.
The Poynter Center serves as the Bloomington office of the IU Center on Philanthropy. The Poynter Center coordinates a seminar series at IU Bloomington each academic year, and the academic advisor is on the Bloomington campus on a regular basis. IU Center on Philanthropy
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