2003 in Review

This was a year of growth and change at the Poynter Center. After twenty-one years as director, David Smith retired from the Poynter Center and from the Religious Studies faculty. To honor David's years of service, the center hosted a week-long series of seminars that involved faculty from IU Bloomington and IUPUI to discuss ethical issues in law, medicine, business, and politics. Since all of the speakers had been involved in research projects at the Poynter Center over many years, the seminars served as a wonderful testimony to David's ability to involve people from so many different disciplines.

Richard Miller assumed directorship of the Poynter Center on July 1. He plans to maintain the center's strong tradition of interdisciplinary work and develop new areas of study and outreach. Rich has participated in Poynter Center programs since he joined the Religious Studies faculty in 1985. In August, we hired Jennifer Girod, a registered nurse with Ph.D. in Religious Studies, as a Research Associate. Jenny is doing research and coordinating our Medical Ethics Seminars, and in December she began a monthly seminar in Indianapolis on the ethics of resource allocation in health care.

New Program

We initiated the Poynter Center Interdisciplinary Fellowship Program this fall, which now involves five IU faculty from different disciplines in the humanities and the Law School. The fellows, Jenny, and Rich are studying "Democracy and Dissent" this year. The aim of the seminar is to stimulate new interdisciplinary work in social and political ethics across the Bloomington campus. The readings have included Taylor Branch's stirring account of the Freedom Rides; court cases on flag burning and religious fundamentalism in educational curricula; theories of citizenship, political obligation, and identity politics; and writings by Aristotle, John Rawls, and Martin Luther King, Jr. To further enrich our seminar, we brought one guest speaker to campus in the fall, Professor David Estlund of Brown University. This spring we have invited Professor Arthur Applbaum of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

On other fronts, Kenneth Pimple continues his work in the areas of research ethics and human subjects. He again hosted the Scientists and Subjects: An Online Seminar on the Ethics of Research with Human Subjects in the spring, and Teaching Research Ethics: A Workshop at Indiana University in May. The Poynter Center is the host organization for the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics and benefit greatly from collaborations with that association.

The Poynter Center continues its relationship as the Bloomington office for the IU Center on Philanthropy. We hosted six presentations this year, as well as the spring graduation lunch for the students in their programs. David Smith is finishing up a grant from the Center on Philanthropy, looking at the subject of "Moral Issues in Doing Good." Ten scholars met twice in 2003 to discuss drafts of essays that David will assemble into a book on the subject.

In addition to the public lectures noted above, the Poynter Center hosted the second Matthew Vandivier Sims Memorial Lecture. Thomas Murray from the Hastings Center spoke in March on "Parents, Children, and Cloning."

The Center published one new monograph this year. The monograph by David H. Smith, "Ethics and the Teaching Responsibilities of Faculty" is based on his retirement lecture for the Department of Religious Studies.

Richard B. Miller's Children, Ethics, and Modern Medicine, was published by the Indiana University Press in 2003. The book was a part of a Poynter Center project, Religion, Ethnography and Professional Life, which was funded by the Lilly Endowment.