Projects
Below is a list of individual and institutional research and teaching activities, in alphabetical order. This list does not exhaust the full range of activities at the Poynter Center. To learn about those, please visit our website at www.indiana.edu/~poynter.
Ethics Bowl Team. The Poynter Center sponsors the IU Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team. That team comprises 5 undergraduates who meet to discuss cases and prepare their arguments for a regional and national competition each year, the latter of which is held at the annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics. For details about the team and its history, please visit the Poynter Center website or the Ethics Bowl webpage.
Local Events. The Poynter Center regularly sponsors or co-sponsors events on campus and in the local community. Examples include a monthly Health Care Ethics Seminar, participating in the “One Book, One Bloomington” book series, sponsoring a panel on “Race and the Academy,” and hosting the Poynter Roundtable as a means of highlighting recent research and creative activity of Indiana University faculty.
Matthew Vandivier Sims Annual Lecture. Sponsored by Damon and Suzette Sims, the annual Matthew Vandivier Sims Annual Sims Lecture brings a distinguished scholar in bioethics to campus each year for a public lecture and luncheon meeting with the Wells Scholars. The Sims lecturers have been William F. May, Thomas Murray, LeRoy Walters, James F. Childress, Ronald Green, Rebecca Dresser, and John Arras.
Poynter Center Interdisciplinary Faculty Fellowship and Seminar. In 2003-2007 the Poynter Center sponsored a competitive internal competition for an interdisciplinary faculty seminar and fellowship on a select theme. In 2003-05 the theme was “Democracy and Dissent”; in 2004-05 the theme was “The Ethics and Politics of Childhood”; in 2004-05 it was “Nature in the Scientific and Moral Imagination”; and in 2005-06 it was “Memory: Ethics, Politics, Aesthetics.” Faculty Fellows have included colleagues from the departments of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Biology, Communication and Culture, East Asian Languages and Cultures, English, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, and the Schools of Education, Fine Arts, and Law.
Privacy in Public: Ethics, Privacy and the Technology of Public Surveillance. The Poynter Center was awarded a $16,650 research grant by the Office of the Vice President for Research at IU in 2006-07. The project explored ethical issues bearing on privacy that arise as new modes of surveillance are made possible by developments in information technology. The Poynter Center brought four speakers to interact with IU faculty and students during four half-day public seminars in 2006 and early 2007.
Science and Democratic Public Life Informal Working Group. Starting in April 2005, several IU faculty in the sciences and humanities began meeting at the Poynter Center to discuss the culture wars, religion, and liberals arts education in the wake of controversies surrounding the teaching of evolution in secondary education. This group distributed, and continues to distribute, resources to each other in hard copy and via the web. The Poynter Center drafted a White Paper that clarifies the main terms of the debate between those who support the teaching of evolution and those who wish to support the idea of intelligent design. Co-authored by Robert Crouch, Lisa Sideris, and Richard Miller, the White Paper takes up that controversy’s scientific, religious, educational, and legal dimensions.
Undergraduate Research Stipends in Practical Ethics. The Poynter Center annually offers research stipends to support undergraduates working in practical ethics.
Faculty Workshop on Empathy. Together with the IU Institute for Advanced Study, the Poynter Center will be sponsoring an interdisciplinary faculty workshop on Empathy in 2009-10. Details are to come.
Visiting Lectureships: The Poynter Center routinely sponsors or co-sponsors visiting lecturers to campus. Typically these visits include interaction with Poynter Center staff and invited IU faculty and students. Over the past several years these visitors have included David Estlund, Arthur Applbaum, J. Baird Callicott, Gareth Matthews, Paul Haupt, Rob Reich, John Barbour, Eugenie Scott, John Kelsay, William M. Sullivan, Martin Marty, and Paul Lauritzen. We have published papers by Professors Estlund and Matthews in our Occasional Papers series at the Poynter Center.