Ethics education at UVSC supports and enhances the General Education (Liberal Arts) curriculum. Ethics education has an impressive history at UVSC. In the mid-1980s, UVSC faculty discussed for two years, with the aid of consultants, the attributes of an “educated person.” This project was furthered by a three-year grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) for $165,000 which UVSC received in 1986 to develop and implement the interdisciplinary core humanities course Ethics and Values (Philosophy 2050). The funds were used for faculty development, library acquisition, community lecture series and scholarly development. Currently over 32,000 students have completed this course, which has been applauded by scholars throughout the county as a model for interdisciplinary Ethics education. In 1990, UVSC received another $300,000 NEH grant to foster an interdisciplinary Ethics discussion of the History of Science and Civilization.

UVSC’s commitment to Ethics education was expanded in 1993 into a school-wide project titled Ethics Across the Curriculum (EAC) by a Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) grant. Out of 2,500 applications only 70 were awarded, with UVSC receiving $240,000 over three years. In 1993, Utah’s first and only Ethics center in the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) was formed, the Center for the Study of Ethics, under the directorship of Elaine Englehardt, Ph.D. In 1996, UVSC received another grant from NEH to fund Ethics K-12 with the three school districts within the UVSC vicinity. In 1998, UVSC received a prestigious FIPSE Dissemination Grant Award ($165,000) with the goal of replicating UVSC’s successful EAC program at four other institutions: Chaffey College, Loyola University of Chicago, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the University of Utah. The most recent FIPSE grant ($120,000) has funded the foundation of a national society to promote EAC: the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum, and the creation of an associated journal. Three UVSC Philosophy professors are deeply involved with the project: Elaine Englehardt, Ph.D., and David Keller, Ph.D., serve on the Executive Committee, and Brian Birch, Ph.D., is Editor of the journal, Teaching Ethics. (This journal is UVSC’s first and currently only nationally-distributed academic print journal.)

Philosophy education at UVSC is enriched by the Center for the Study of Ethics. Premised on the idea that moral discourse is vital to a flourishing civil society, the purpose of the Center for the Study of Ethics is to explore the ethical dimensions of a wide variety of disciplines and contemporary moral issues. Designed to serve the needs of students, faculty, and the community at large, the Center promotes the study of Ethics through curriculum development, public forums, publications, and faculty workshops. The Center facilitates discussion about the moral nuances of everyday life, and supports the individual effort of orienting oneself within the wider social horizon. In order to achieve these goals, the Center organizes numerous conferences, symposia, lecture series, panel discussions, faculty book discussion groups, including the following annual events: Ethics Awareness Week, Conference by the Faculty, Medical Ethics Symposium, Environmental Ethics Lecture Series, Environmental Ethics Conference, Business Ethics Lecture Series, Great Thinkers Lecture Series, and Philosophical Issues in Ethics Across the Curriculum. These events have brought visiting scholars, faculty, students, administrators, and community members into open dialogue about a wide range of ethical and philosophical topics.