Ethics Week

About Ethics Week

Ethics Week strives to actively involve students, staff and faculty in meaningful ethics conversations, encouraging a campus-wide engagement with contemporary moral challenges. Each day is dedicated to exploring different aspects of ethics, focusing on issues that resonate with our current societal context, such as Freedom of Speech, Artificial Intelligence, and other pertinent themes.

Throughout the week, participants had the opportunity to engage with various themes through an array of formats, including panel discussions, workshops, and interactive sessions, all aimed at stimulating dialogue, critical thinking, and collaboration across disciplines.

The 2025 event marked the inaugural Ethics Week for the campus community. Thank you to everyone who came together to explore the key roles that ethics plays in our professional and personal lives. We look forward to next year's lineup of engaging topics and sessions. The 2026 Ethics Week will be held Feb. 16-20, 2026.
 

The 2026 Ethics Week Programming is listed below. For specific event details and registration, please visit each day's events page.

Monday, February 16

• Using AI Responsibly in Research and Creative Activities, Time: 9–10 a.m., Location: WKAR
  Join us for a conversation with Wes Fondren, Associate Provost for AI, Academic Technology, and Professional Development, where we will discuss using AI responsibly in research and creative activities.
• Lunch and Learn: Made in Michigan, Built on Integrity, Time: 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., Location: MPR
  This event connects students with entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and innovators in an informal, conversational setting, exploring how ethics and entrepreneurship intersect, and what it takes to lead with integrity while growing a startup in Michigan.
• The Ethics of Corporate Complicity: The Economy of the Holocaust, Time: 5:30–6:30 p.m., Location: N130
  Join the leadership team from The Zekelman Holocaust Center to explore a critical and often overlooked aspect of this history: how corporate complicity helped support the murder of over 6 million Jewish people. 

Tuesday, February 17

• The Ethics of Open Scholarship, Time: 9–10 a.m., Location: TBD  
  This event will explore the ethical questions surfaced by the open access and open science movements, including the ways that advocates' goals of creating greater equity in scholarly and scientific communication have been undermined by recent developments in corporate publishers' business models.

Wednesday, February 18

• The Ethics of AI, Information Systems and Libraries, Time: 9:30–11:30 a.m., Location: Green Room Main Library
  Hosted by MSU Libraries, this panel convenes scholars and practitioners to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming copyright, creativity, and the circulation of knowledge.
• Ethical Leadership in Sports and Entertainment, Time: 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m., Location: N336 ESHIP
  Sports business and entertainment are complex and evolving industries. Join us for a conversation with professional industry executives to talk about ethical considerations and decisions they are being faced with today.
• Digital Ethics in Digital Literacy in the Classroom, Time: 12–1 p.m., Location: TBD
  Details coming soon!
• Infusing Ethical Approaches to AI Across Curriculum, Time: 2:30–3:30 p.m., Location: 315 Bessey Hall
  In this panel, Writing, Rhetoric and Cultures faculty plan to discuss AI and teaching, including MSU’s AI guidelines, how to ethically approach AI in the classroom, and provide examples of activities and assignments for adaption and adoption.
• The Roy S. Pung Executive Speaker Lecture featuring Kay Firth-Butterfield, Time: 5:30–6:30 p.m., Location: N130
  Kay Firth-Butterfield will address many aspects of the beneficial and challenging technical, economic, and social changes arising from the use of AI.

Thursday, February 19

• Ethics on the Move, Time: 11:30–12:30 p.m., Location: MPR
  This session walks through how to recognize ethical choices, and what to consider when deciding how you will move forward.
• Ethical use of AI in the Job Application Process, Time: 12–1 p.m., Location: MSU Student Service Building (SSB), Suite 113 in the Presentation Suite
  This session will examine the ethical use of artificial intelligence in the job application process, from writing resumes and cover letters to preparing professional materials.
• When is a Brain Really Dead?, Time: 12–1 p.m., Location: TBD
  We will review, in a panel discussion followed by Q&A, commonly encountered ethical considerations at the beginning and end of life as presented to a hospital-based Ethics Committee.
• Closing the Gap, Time: 3–4 p.m., Location: TBD 
  Facilitated by: Lisa Laughman
  Details coming soon!

Friday, February 20

• MSU Leadership Panel, Time: 10–11 a.m., Location: Multicultural Center – Room 1015
  Join us for a Leadership panel where President Kevin Guskiewicz, Provost Laura Lee McIntyre, Executive Vice President for Administration Vennie Gore, Vice President and Chief Communications Officer Emily Guerrant, and Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning Innovation Marcio Oliveira discuss the impacts and outcomes of ethics and leadership on a university campus.
• Ethics in the News Case Competition, Time: 1–5:15 p.m. 
  MSU’s Ethics Institute and The Center for Ethical and Socially Responsible Leadership will be hosting Ethics in the New Case Competition for undergraduate students on Friday, February 20th. Teams of 2, 3 or 4 students will compete to address all ethical and business implications for a current day ethical situation.  
• Brews and Views: Plastics and Ethical Realities: Taking Responsibility for the Invisible, Time: 5 p.m., Location: TBD 
  This session confronts the collision between economic value, technological progress, environmental integrity, public health, and intergenerational justice—interrogating not whether plastics have delivered benefits, but whether those promises excuse their lasting legacy.