Butler University, Indianapolis

FINAL INSTITUTIONAL REPORT

on

THE LILLY FOUNDATION

ETHICS AND THE EDUCATED PERSON GRANT PROGRAM

October 20, 1995

In the fall of 1993, Butler University's Change and Tradition program (C&T) was awarded a Lilly Foundation grant to fund its "Cross-Cultural Education and Ethics" project. C&T is an interdisciplinary world cultures course, and it was chosen as the focus of the project because the consideration of ethical and moral issues across the cultures is among the stated objectives of the course. Our project's primary goal, therefore, has been "to further articulate [the ethical and moral issues that arise in the study of world cultures] and to make their discussion in the classroom a more explicit and substantive concern of Change and Tradition" (Grant Proposal, p. 1). In order to achieve this goal, we have concentrated our efforts in three areas: faculty training, student learning, and assessment.

We devoted the early phase of our project (August 1993-May 1994) to faculty training, beginning with a major weekend-retreat with consultant Lee Yearley from Stanford University. The retreat was followed by various staff meetings that focused on the theoretical and pedagogical issues surrounding cross-cultural education in ethics. The weekend retreat was both very productive and the best attended in the program's history, indicating the faculty members' interest in ethics and their clear willingness to approach it in deliberate and systematic ways. In the subsequent meetings, the faculty continued to debate and refine teaching strategies.

In August 1994 began the second phase in our project which continues to date. In this phase, most of our work has been in the areas of student learning and assessment. One particularly promising teaching strategy has been the pairing of readings across the different culture units in order to accentuate the cultural variances that underlie ethical deliberation. The suggested pairings include: Socratic Dialogues ("Apology," "Crito," "Phaedo") vs. Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman; Confucius' concept of "filial piety" vs. Turgenev's Fathers and Sons or Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. Such pairings are intended to aid students in examining both the culture-specific aspects of moral codes as well as those human virtues and norms that seem valid across world cultures and historical periods. Furthermore, in keeping with Lee Yearley's advice to involve the individual's imagination in ethical reasoning, a number of C&T faculty members have assigned writing topics that invited the students to imagine inhabiting the "other's" cultural and moral space. We have also adjusted our curriculum to devote the last two class periods in each semester to exploring cross-cultural comparisons that include normative or ethical comparisons.

Complementing our work in the classroom has been the series of convocation speakers who lectured on ethics-related topics. The 1994-95 speakers were, Philip Ivanhoe of Stanford University who spoke on Confucian and Taoist Ethics in Early China; and Judith Van Allen who spoke on the clash of the British and the indigenous codes of morality during the period of colonialism in Nigeria and other African societies. In October of this year, we received F. E. Peters, the eminent Islamicist, whose presentation examined the religious/moral compatibilities and differences among Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These ethics-related convocations were also among the best attended by our students, possibly a direct outcome of our project.

In 1994-95, the C&T program entered its second decade; it also began an overall assessment process that continues to date. Given the extensive nature of the undertaking, the coordinators of the ethics project have chosen to incorporate our own assessment into the ongoing general assessment. Last year, the course was evaluated by students, alumni, faculty, and three visiting consultants, Lee Yearley (Stanford University), David Smith (Indiana University) and John Rosenberg (Columbia University). Two of the consultants, Yearley and Smith, have been very familiar with our ethics project from the start. Especially during Yearley's visit, cross-cultural education and ethics remained a prominent topic of discussion at the staff meetings. Indeed, one of Yearley's suggestions involved centering the course around the topic of human flourishing which would also reinforce ethical deliberation in the classroom. During the better part of this year, the C&T faculty will be evaluating the assessment data and considering possible structural and pedagogical revisions.

It is difficult, then, to assert that our "Cross-Cultural Education and Ethics" project has reached an end. We originally proposed a project related to the Change and Tradition program precisely because that course is integral to the curriculum, and we could therefore be confident that our ethics project would have a broad-based and enduring impact. Our work over the past two years, with the help of our outside consultants, has enriched our approach to ethics in the classroom and given us new perspectives and methodologies by which to address ethical questions with our students. Just as Change and Tradition is itself an ongoing and evolving enterprise, its faculty consistently engaged in the process of reflection and assessment, so will our ethics project continue to percolate and develop for years to come.

Respectfully submitted,

Harry van der Linden, Paul Hanson, Aron Aji, Coordinators

Butler University Interdisciplinary Studies 201-202

CHANGE AND TRADITION: CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

INTRODUCTION

Change and Tradition is part of Butler University's core curriculum, and is required of all sophomores. Approximately twenty-five class sections each semester are taught by some twenty faculty members. The faculty has developed eight teaching units, each concentrating on a particular culture at a time of transition. Six units, three per semester, are taught each academic year.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

GOALS

OBJECTIVES

In order to achieve these goals, a number of concrete objectives must be met. To complete the course successfully the student must:

EXAMINATIONS AND OTHER REQUIREMENTS

Examinations

Each unit of study ends with a 50 minute examination. The final examination (2 hours) consists of essay questions drawn from the entire semester and making connections between the cultures studied.

Required Papers

Each semester, three short, critical papers, approximately three pages in length, are required of all students. Specific assignments are given by the instructor.

Convocations

Students are encouraged to take advantage of a variety of events, including performances and lectures, scheduled at least three times each semester, as supplements to the various units of the course.

GENERAL OUTLINES AND REQUIRED READINGS

FALL SEMESTER

Fifth Century Athens

  1. The Geography of the Mediterranean World
  2. Chronological Overview of Greek History
  3. Society, Community, Religion, Pan Hellenism
  4. The Classical City-State
  5. Greek Philosophy and Science
  6. Philoctetes and Lysistrata
  7. Greek Art and Music
  8. Aftermath and Legacy
ANTHOLOGY CONTENTS

TEXTBOOKS

Traditional China

  1. Geography and Ethnic Groups
  2. Chronological Overview of Chinese History
  3. The Chinese Language
  4. Family and Society
  5. Chinese Thought, Religion, Philosophy
  6. Bureaucracy and Empire
  7. Science, Technology and the Arts
  8. Aftermath and Legacy
ANTHOLOGY CONTENTS

TEXTBOOKS

Early Islamic Civilization

  1. Geography
  2. Chronological Overview
  3. The Birth of Islam
  4. The Teaching and Practice of Islam
  5. The Rise of Imperial Islam
  6. Cultural Flourishing: Art, Science, Philosophy, Literature
  7. Aftermath and Legacy
ANTHOLOGY CONTENTS

TEXTBOOKS

The World of Christopher Columbus

  1. Geography
  2. Chronological Overview
  3. Society and Social Classes
  4. Religion, Race and National Unity
  5. The World Columbus Discovered
  6. Empire, Foreign Policy and Economy
  7. The Playboy of Seville and Lazarillo de Tormes
  8. Spanish Culture in the Golden Century
  9. Aftermath and Legacy
ANTHOLOGY CONTENTS

TEXTBOOKS

SPRING SEMESTER

Revolutionary France

  1. Geography and Political Background--Europe in 1789
  2. Old Regime Government and Society
  3. Voltaire, Candide
  4. Intellectual Background of the Revolution: The Enlightenment
  5. Rousseau, A Discourse on Inequality
  6. Causes and Outbreak of the Revolution
  7. The Constitutional Monarchy, 1790-1792
  8. The Radical Republic, 1792-1794
  9. Napoleon and Europe: The Revolution Exported
  10. Aftermath and Legacy
ANTHOLOGY CONTENTS

TEXTBOOKS

Victorian England

  1. The Land and the People
  2. Society and Social Classes
  3. Industrialization and Urbanization
  4. The Government and the Economy
  5. Great Britain and the World
  6. "Victorianism," Religion, Science, Reform
  7. Aftermath and Legacy
ANTHOLOGY CONTENTS

TEXTBOOKS

Tsarist Russia

  1. Geography and Political Expansion to 1800
  2. Autocracy
  3. Church and Religion
  4. Society and Classes
  5. Russia in the Nineteenth Century: Government and Critical Ideologies
  6. Age of Reform
  7. Urbanization, Industrialization, and the Revolutionary Movement
  8. Aftermath and Legacy

ANTHOLOGY CONTENTS

TEXTS

Colonial Nigeria

  1. The Land and the People
  2. Tradition: Government, Culture, Family
  3. Religious Tradition and Change
  4. The Coming of the Europeans
  5. The Slave Trade
  6. Colonialism
  7. Nationalism and Independence

ANTHOLOGY CONTENTS

TEXTBOOKS

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