Ethics Week

The 2026 Ethics Week programming is listed below. 

All Week 

• Blurred Realities
  How do we determine what is real, what is imagined, and what is meant to deceive? The MSU Museum's Blurred Realities exhibition explores the complexities of misinformation, disinformation, bias, and digital manipulation, inviting visitors to explore the ways our perceptions, decision-making, and democratic systems are influenced by technologies and tools like AI. Admission to the Museum is free, but registration is required. 

Monday, February 16

• Urban Forestry and Downtown East Lansing
  Students from the Integrative Arts and Humanities class "Hacking the Built Environment" will facilitate a Downtown Tree Canopy Revitalization visioning session for the MSU community.
• The Now of AI Ethics: Frightening, Exciting
  Join us for a conversation with Wes Fondren, Associate Provost for AI, Academic Technology, and Professional Development, where we will focus on the urgency of using artificial intelligence responsibly in research and creative activities, including current ethical dilemmas, guidelines, and practical applications.
• Lunch and Learn: Made in Michigan, Built on Integrity
  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.
• Ethics in Law and Journalism: A Conversation on State Ethics Laws, Professional Codes, and Public Trust
  Join Dave Boucher, investigative reporter for the Detroit Free Press, and Prof. Justin Simard for a conversation on local and state ethics laws.  
• The Aspen Tree: Community through Connection
  Drawing from the Aspen Tree, this activity involves taking the time to focus attention away from self towards each other. Everyone in the room will be invited to collectively participate in figuring out commonalities.
• The Ethics of Corporate Complicity: The Economy of the Holocaust
  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
  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.
• The Ethics of Belonging: Care Power and the Promise of Inclusion
  This session explores belonging not as a branding message, but as an ethical practice grounded in responsibility, recognition, and repair. Drawing from multicultural clinical ethics, community care, and experience shaping campus mental health and wellbeing initiatives, the speaker will examine how harm arises when belonging is promised but not fully realized, and how intentional connection and ensuring people feel they matter can transform rhetoric into meaningful, relational practice.
• Ethical Conflict as Community Practice: Rethinking Disagreement and Repair
  Conflict is often approached as something to resolve quickly, yet it can also raise meaningful ethical questions about how we show up for one another and how we contribute to the wellbeing of our community. In this session, we will look at conflict through an ethical lens and consider how our responses reflect what we value and how we understand our responsibilities to others.
• Advertising Ethics - A Panel Discussion Bridging Academic and Industry
  This panel will discuss ethical issues facing the industry, including data privacy, ethics of influencer marketing, ethics of AI-use in the advertising industry, and greenwashing.
• Lunch and Learn: Ethics of Accounting
  Join PwC Detroit Tax Partner, Pat Mahoney, to learn more about the importance of ethics in a career in accounting.
• Lead Like Lasso: Values in Action, Care at the Core
  Join this lunch and learn for a discussion on how moments from the TV show can inspire tangible practices to lead with our values in our everyday lives.
• Ethics of the University
  This panel, featuring MSU's Provost Emeritus and Professor of Economics Thomas Jeitschko and three nationally known experts on how ethics is managed in corporations, universities, and other large institutions, will discuss how large institutions incorporate ethics into everything they do.

Wednesday, February 18

• The Ethics of AI, Information Systems and Libraries
  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
  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 facing today.
• Digital Ethics in Digital Literacy in the Classroom
  Lunch and Learn in LEADR where we’ll create materials for leading students through a digital ethics and literacy workshop.
• Moral Injury on Campus: Ethical Distress, Institutional Complexity, and Pathways to Repair 
  This session explores moral injury as a relational and ethical wound distinct from burnout or stress. Drawing from clinical practice and organizational ethics, participants will examine how moral injury emerges within higher education, how it affects wellbeing and trust, and how individuals and institutions can move toward repair through transparency, alignment with values, and practices of collective care.
• Infusing Ethical Approaches to AI Across Curriculum
  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.
• Ethical Mentorship & the Moral Responsibility of Developing Future Military Leaders
  Our presentation examines the ethical responsibility involved in mentoring future military leaders and how intentional practices shape their character and professional judgment.
• The Roy S. Pung Executive Speaker Lecture featuring Kay Firth-Butterfield
  Kay Firth-Butterfield will address many aspects of the beneficial and challenging technical, economic, and social changes arising from the use of AI.
• Philosophers Doing Ethics
  On this panel, four MSU philosophers discuss their research, highlighting the range and value of philosophical approaches to ethical concerns.

Thursday, February 19

• Inclusive Critical AI Discourse
  Creating space and structure for critical discourse about artificial intelligence for faculty and students at the unit level.
• Ethics in Action
  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
  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? Ethical Dilemmas at the End of Life
  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 between Values and Behavior
  Participants will examine the nature of this values/behavior gap and the subtle ways it shows up at both individual and organizational levels. The session will address the consequences of misalignment, such as erosion of trust, decreased credibility, disengagement, ethical drift, and weakened performance.
• Synthetics Sirens: At a Crossroads of Ethics, AI, and Social Media
  As part of MSU’s Ethics Week programming, MSUFCU Arts Power Up artist-in-residence Cecilie Waagner Falkenstrøm joins Maral Zakharia, associate professor in the MSU College of Communication Arts and Sciences, and Steven L. Bridges, senior curator and director of curatorial affairs, to discuss Falkenstrøm’s new artwork, Synthetic Sirens. Part talk, part immersive experience— this event is at the intersection of art, technology, and ethical considerations today.  

Friday, February 20

• MSU Leadership Panel
  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
  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, Feb. 20. 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: Plastic Promises, Permanent Consequences
  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. 

Saturday, February 21

• 40th Annual MSU Powwow of Love
  Join the North American Indigenous Student Organization (NAISO) in a celebration and cultural expression of indigenous communities. Experience dancing, indigenous food, drumming, and vendors selling cultural art and goods!