September 6, 2001
ETHICS SERIES KICKS OFF WITH POST-HOLOCAUST PERSPECTIVE
LA CROSSE, Wis—Stem cell research, the Holocaust, the future of health care—all these topics will be on the table for discussion as part of the 2001-02 lecture series sponsored by the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics and Leadership at Viterbo University.
The lecture series kicks off Thursday, Oct. 4 featuring author Stephen Haynes, who will discuss "Bonhoeffer: Post-Holocaust Perspective." Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an outspoken Protestant clergyman and one of the few church leaders of his time to stand in public opposition to Hitler and his policies. He died in the Flossenburg concentration camp in 1945.
Haynes who is the author of six books, is a professor at Rhodes College in Memphis and, recently, he was selected to serve on the Church Relations Committee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
Besides the Holocaust presentation, three other lectures have been scheduled:
- On Monday, Nov. 5, former Minnesota senator David Durenberger will discuss, "The Health System of the Future." Durenberger now serves as chair and CEO of the Saint Thomas University/University of Minnesota's National Institute of Health Policy. While in politics, he served as chair the Senate Finance Committee's Health Subcommittee and was catapulted into a leadership role in the discussion of national health reform.
- On Tuesday, Nov. 6, David Prentice, professor of life sciences and adjunct professor of medical and molecular genetics at Indiana State University, will discuss, "The Science and Ethics of Stem Cell Research." Prentice is a nationally-recognized expert on stem cell research and has testified several times before Congress regarding this topic as well as cloning and bioethics.
- On Thursday, April 18, the series concludes with a featured presentation by Jean Bethke Elshtain, a professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago. Her topic is, "You Can't be Different All by Yourself: Citizens and Communities." Elshtain holds seven honorary degrees and has served as a visiting professor at Yale and Harvard universities. She is best known in her role as a political philosopher who shows connections between our political and ethical convictions.
All lectures will be held in Viterbo's Fine Arts Center and begin at 7:30 p.m.—with the exception of Prentice's which will begin at 8 p.m.
The free lectures are made possible through an endowment to the D.B. Reinhart Institute for Ethics in Leadership.
The institute is also sponsoring a symposium on servant leadership (Nov. 7,) and a conference on "Living with Difference in Art, Religion and Politics" (April 18-20).
For more information on any of the institute programs, contact Richard Kyte, director, at 796-3704 or email rlkyte@viterbo.edu.