Education

Ethics must be at the core of the curriculum, shaping the teaching and learning mission of the university inside and outside the classroom, so that the foundations of ethical theory are deeply understood and put into concrete practice. Specifically, ethics education will contain components of experiential learning and application, in addition to classroom education. MSU serves as a training ground for students, staff, and faculty to be able to put ethics into practice in terms of everyday life and various career paths. The MSU Ethics Institute supports the application of ethics in discipline-specific and context-rich settings, and in emerging transdisciplinary fields that prepare our students to act with integrity under conditions of rapid change and ambiguity. 

Goals

The MSU Ethics Institute will support faculty efforts to create, develop, and implement an ethics curriculum in every major in the University, across the Integrated Studies general education curriculum, as a core component of the MSU Honors College experience, MSU Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF) and as a vital part of undergraduate education at MSU. In addition to undergraduate education the institute will also focus on graduate education focusing on research, and teaching. To accomplish this, the MSU Ethics Institute will:

  1. Provide funding for faculty professional development in ethics pedagogy;
  2. Host experts in ethics pedagogy to give lectures and facilitate teaching workshops;
  3. Collaborate with Department Chairs, Program Directors, and Deans to implement a discipline-specific and context-rich ethics program across the university curriculum;
  4. Partner with the Honors College to establish ethics as a core component of the Honors College experience;
  5. Partner with the MSU Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum (UURAF) to facilitate research experience for undergraduate students;
  6. Create and support an Undergraduate Fellows program;
  7. Create and support a cross-university Graduate Dissertation Fellowship program and a Graduate Professional Fellowship program;
  8. Establish and support a residential Undergraduate Certificate Program in Engaged Ethics;
  9. Work with Associated Students of Michigan State University (ASMSU) to establish an actionable plan to implement their code of conduct;
  10. Establish and support an online and residential Graduate Certificate Program in Engaged Ethics;
  11. Facilitate ethics-related co-curricular activities that focus on experiential learning opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students; and
  12. Infuse ethics training in Responsible Conduct of Research training required for all graduate and graduate-professional students.

These opportunities will be designed in collaboration with the existing campuswide infrastructure such as the Department of Student Life, the Graduate School, Center for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement, MSU Community Engaged Learning, and other disciplinary Centers across the University.