On December 5, 2022, educator and author Anika Prather, PhD, discussed “Education & Liberation.”
On November 7, 2022, Stephen Trzeciak, MD, co-author of Compassionomics and Wonder Drug, joined us to discuss compassion and medicine.
On October 10, 2022 Sociology professor Brandon Vaidyanathan discussed his “Beauty at Work” project and how beauty is relevant to things like science, justice, morality, food, faith, work, and other aspects of our lives.
On September 26, 2022 University of Virginia President James Ryan discussed “Character, Higher Education & Democracy.”
On May 16, 2022 St. John’s Tutor and author of Lost in Thought, Zena Hitz, joined us to discuss “educating for flourishing.”
On April 25, 2022 Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business Associate Professor Taya Cohen discussed “Honesty and Moral Character at Work.”
On March 21, Rosalyn Berne, UVA Professor and Director of the Online Ethics Center, discussed Ethics Education for Engineers.
On February 28, Victor Montori, Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, the author of the book Why We Revolt discussed “Careful and Kind Care in Medicine.”
On January 31, 2022 at noon, Darden Professor Mary Gentile discussed “Giving Voice to Values.”
On December 13, 2021 at noon, Washington University at St. Louis Professor of Law & Religion, John Inazu, discussed “Pluralism & the Purpose of Higher Education.”
On November 29, 2021 at noon, Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor, Howard Gardner, discussed the question “What is Good Work?”
On October 25, 2021 at noon, psychiatrist and author of Everyday Vitality, Samantha Boardman, discussed “Human Flourishing & Everyday Vitality.”
On September 20, 2021 at noon, Wharton Business School Professor and Co-Director of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative, Katy Milkman, discussed her book, How to Change, and how it connects with virtue and higher education.
On May 25, 2021, Duke University Computer Science Professor Nicki Washington discussed the importance of cultural competence in computer science. “Why should computer science care about identity?”
On May 18, 2021, Olin College President Gilda Barabino discussed engineering education: “How can engineering create cultures of belonging?”
On May 11, 2021, Bill Damon, Stanford University Professor of Education and author of The Path to Purpose, discussed the connection between purpose and character: “What is the Connection between Purpose and Character?”
On May 4, 2021, Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology and author of books such as Practical Wisdom and Why We Work discussed the the need for practical wisdom and how it can be cultivated in higher education: “How can higher education cultivate practical wisdom?”
On April 27, 2021, Johann Neem, professor of history at Western Washington University and author of several books on education discussed the purpose of colleges and universities: “What’s the Point of College?”
On April 20, 2021, University of Michigan sociology professor Erin Cech discussed “the passion principle” and inequality in the workplace: “Does telling students to pursue their passion foster inequality?”
On April 13, 2021, James Arthur, Professor and Founding Director of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, discussed contextualizing virtues in education: “How does the Jubilee Centre Contextualize Character Virtues?”
On April 6, 2021 Father Greg Boyle, Founder of Homeboy Industries and author of Tattoos on the Heart, discussed kinship and community: “What Does Kinship have to do with Good Work?”
On March 30, 2021Francis Su, Professor of Mathematics and author of Mathematics for Human Flourishing, discussed how studying math can cultivate character and flourishing: “What Does Math have to do with Character?”
“What is the Moral Responsibility of Engineers?” – On March 23, 2021, Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard Business School Professor and author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, discussed moral responsibility in the digital age.
“What Makes a Good Doctor?” – On March 16, Dr. Rana Awdish, physician and author of In Shock discussed medicine and rethinking how we train doctors as part of the series Reimagining Education: Conversations on Character, Commitment & Community.
“Why Does Higher Education Struggle with its Commitment to Equity?” – On March 9, 2021, Anthony Jack, Harvard Professor of Education and author of The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students discussed equity and higher education.
“Purpose and Character in Higher Education”– On February 3, 2021, Wake Forest University President Nathan Hatch, author and former Morehouse College President Robert Franklin, Jr., and Bates College President Clayton Spencer discussed the current state of higher education and their involvement in initiatives to make issues of purpose and character central to education.
On January 20, 2021, Virtues & Vocations hosted a meeting on character in medicine with Joseph Jackson, MD (Associate Dean in the Duke University School of Medicine and Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics) in conversation with Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR (Professor of Medicine and Director, Columbia Center for Medical Ethics), Reeni Abraham, MD (Associate Professor of Medicine and Co-Director, Internal Medicine Clerkship, University of Texas – Southwestern Medical Center) and Andrea Leep Hunderfund, MD (Associate Professor of Neurology, Mayo Clinic).
As part of the Good Reason: Purpose & Public Policy workshop at Duke University, Virtues & Vocations welcomed Dr. Vivek Murthy, the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, nominee to be the 21st Surgeon General and co-chair of President Biden’s COVID-19 Advisory Board. Dr. Murthy spoke on Character, Community, and Public Health.
On Nov 18, 2020, Virtues & Vocations hosted a meeting on character in engineering with Ravi Bellamkonda, the Vinik Dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University, Olga Pierrakos, the Founding Chair of the Department of Engineering at Wake Forest University, and Richard Miller, the Founding President of Olin College of Engineering.
“What is Higher Education For?”- On Tuesday, September 22, 2020 Suzanne Shanahan, Nannerl O. Keohane Director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Associate Research Professor in Sociology and Andrew Delbanco had a conversation on Higher Education. Andrew Delbanco is a professor at Columbia University and president of the Teagle Foundation.
On Tuesday, August 25, 2020, Tressie McMillan Cottom discussed Race & Purpose in Higher Education. Tressie McMillan Cottom is an associate professor at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science, a senior research professor with the UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life, and a faculty affiliate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. She is also the bestselling author of Thick: And Other Essays and Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy.
On Tuesday August 18, 2020, Elwood L. Robinson, Chancellor of Winston Salem State University, discussed “Lessons from HBCUs on Cultivating Purpose & Community.”
On Tuesday August 4, 2020, Emily Esfahani Smith, journalist and author of The Power of Meaning discussed “Social Upheaval and the Search for Meaning & Purpose.”
On Tuesday July 28, 2020, Nancy Koehn, a historian at the Harvard Business School and author of Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times discussed “Character & Leadership in a Crisis.”
On Tuesday July 21, 2020, Yuval Levin, Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and bestselling author of the recent release A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream discussed “Why Institutions Matter for our Future.”
On July 9, 2020, Angela Duckworth, Founder & CEO of Character Lab, Professor of Psychology at Penn, and bestselling author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance discussed “Cultivating Resilience for the Road Ahead.”
