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As part of our reaffirmation process
that we have to go through every
ten years the university is required
to have a quality enhancement plan
by SACS the southern association that
accredits us as a university now a lot of
universities might play it safe and pick
a topic of something that they’re already
doing or that a lot of other schools are
already doing but in our case I was
very proud of our community when
they came together and chose a topic
that goes right to the heart of our
education mission so the topic that
we selected is called the madison
collaborative ethical reasoning in
action and I love that combination
of thinking about ethics but then also
action and how do you translate
ethical thinking and ethical reasoning
into decision making and effecting peoples
lives so it’s a great topic that goes
right along with out mission of public
service of producing educated and
enlighten citizens who want to make
a meaningful difference in the world
and were going to be talking about it
in and outside the classroom¬
One of my favorite quotes and
I always get it wrong but it comes
from the sort of famous comic
George Carlin you know you cant
get through the day without a big
juicy justification I think that’s
even a line from the big chill or
something and I think that’s pretty
accurate so we’ve devised a method
I think of it as a proprietary method
for JMU that will enable use to work
through this with careful reflection
again consideration of a variety of
different perspectives it does require
time and it requires thought but the
pay off very important
The key aim as were developing ways
of implementing this is to involve the
students in significant discussion and
there are many students deeply concerned
about our over all affect upon the
environment and other communities
in the world of nations that people
will get a chance to express their
views and I think that there will be
kind of natural moderating of extreme
views to take account of the good
arguments that the internationalist would have
We talk about students but this
madison collaborative is not directed
just at the students it’s a part of
the community so we’re a collaborative
so certainly student government
is involved the faculty senate is
involved the administrator staff
faculty the athletic coaches
we’re all a part of the collaborative
working together to achieve a common
goal of making better decisions and
understanding how we’re making better decisions
I and my collogues are excited beyond
belief that we’ve done some of these
things before and we’d say our students
are good enlightened students and they’re
becoming that way but never before
have we intentionally made sure that
all four thousand plus freshmen
understand this frame of looking
at ethical decision making in choices
I just cant wait I cant imagine what
its like when someone comes into
my office having already experienced
that our discussions will be so much
deeper and so much richer again I
think it’s the university is kind of
putting its money where its mouth
is where enlightened citizens look at
these deeper issues you’re here to
get an education but you’re also here
to become a better person a better citizen
Educated and enlightened citizens
require tools for ethical decision making
perhaps on of the biggest needs of
fulfilling that promise of productive
engaged citizens who have rich meaningful
lives I think that we all become richer
if we engage in a community of people
equipped with tools that will allow
us to understand the complexity of our
lives and of our civic lives as citizens
We’re talking about changing the culture
of this institution the culture of this
community and potentially the culture
of multiple communities and that takes time
Well I think its particularly appropriate
that we’re having this discussion or having
the madison collaborative at
James Madison University because so much
of madison’s work was really focused
on what I think of as ethics you know
madison wrote most of the bill of rights
and it wasn’t in the original constitution
I think if you look at Madison’s writings
he thought that these were things that
were assumed to be true by everyone
so why bother writing them down we
all know that this is the stuff that a
government should and shouldn’t do
and later he became persuaded that
yeah maybe we do need to write
these things down so I think examining
what kind of society we want is very
much close to madison’s heart this is
something that probably madison really
would have wanted so I think we’re the
ideal university sort of pick up and examine
these broader questions of justice in society
This is the time to I think be stimulated
by participating in these experiences
and workshops in the dorm or in classes
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