President Kerry D. Romesburg accepted
the First Place honor of the prestigious
Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Faculty Development to Enhance Undergraduate Teaching
and Learning at the American Council
on Education Conference
in Washington, D.C., February 19,
2001, for UVSC’s
Ethics Across the Curriculum program. Named in honor of
Reverend Hesburgh, former President of the University of
Notre Dame, the $30,000 cash award is presented to the school
with the most outstanding curriculum development in American
higher education. The money has been used to set up an endowment
to fund ongoing ethics education at UVSC. “The fact
that we are being recognized for our work in ethics is particularly
gratifying,” President Romesburg said. “Trying
to promote and instill ethical thinking
and decision making with our students
has long been a hallmark of our curriculum.”
Assistant Vice President for Academic
Affairs Elaine Englehardt, who founded
the Center for the Study of Ethics
in 1993, and has been a pioneer in Ethics
Across the Curriculum, said that
the purpose of the program is to “explore the ethical dimensions of a wide variety
of disciplines and contemporary moral issues in open, public
discussion.” Dr. Englehardt added that earning the
Hesburgh involved a community effort. “The success
of the Ethics Across the Curriculum program in no small
part is due the widespread participation in the program
from every corner of campus.” Under the leadership
of Dr. Englehardt, since 1986 UVSC
has received over one million dollars
in grants for the Ethics Across the Curriculum
program from the National Endowment
for the Humanities, the Department
of Education Fund for the Improvement of
Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE),
the Utah Humanities Council, and other foundations.
According to David Keller, Director of the Center for the Study of Ethics, Ethics Across the Curriculum is the keystone of the Center’s programming: “UVSC is fertile ground for Ethics Across the Curriculum, due to the unique diversity of the school. I have seen a marked improvement in UVSC students’ awareness and understanding of the many sides of complex ethical issues. In my experience, students come out of the ethics program with a strengthened sense of their own beliefs because they have rational justification for holding them.”
Based on the idea that moral discourse is vital to a flourishing civil society, the Ethics and Values course serves as a General Education core requirement for all UVSC graduates. To date, over 28,000 students have taken Ethics and Values. The course has been applauded by scholars throughout the nation as a model for interdisciplinary Ethics education, and distinguishes UVSC as the only school in Utah with an ethics requirement. As Vice President for Academic Affairs Lucille Stoddard said, “UVSC’s reception of the Hesburgh Award is evidence that UVSC ranks with the nation’s top academic institutions for originality and creativity in curriculum development.”
