"Doing Ethics" Brown-Bag Lunch Series

In the fall of 2011, Dr. Charles Hinkley suggested that we begin a sequence of informal lunch conversations as a way to engage our students outside of the classroom.  He was familiar with other colleges and universities that sponsor similar activities, and it was his hope that we might be able to extend the spirit of our collaborative learning through a series of discussions about ethics across the curriculum.

His idea, the weekly series “Doing Ethics: Brown Bag Lunch Conversations about Ethics,” began in February and ran through April 2012.  The conversations were led by NVC students and faculty members from Humanities, Speech, Philosophy and Chemistry.

This successful program was profiled in the “NVC Faculty Forum” (March 20, 2012), and consistently drew students to conversations about topics such as the death penalty, education rights, and ethical issues in scientific research.  These conversations outside of the classroom did, indeed, have the intended effect of advancing the learning outcomes from inside of the classroom.