December 05, 2005

UA Establishes Initiative for Ethics and Social Responsibility

By Cathy Andreen

Stephen Foster Black

The University has established a new campus initiative to address issues related to ethics and social responsibility and to help prepare students to serve as effective, engaged ethical citizens.

The new Initiative for Ethics and Social Responsibility (IESR) will be directed by Stephen Foster Black, a newly appointed member of the UA faculty. The initiative is aimed at making the values and skills of citizenship a hallmark of a UA education.

“The University of Alabama has a critical role to play in preparing students to serve as effective, engaged and ethical citizens,” said UA President Robert E. Witt. “This new initiative will assist students in developing the qualities that define citizenship, and will provide a large number of student volunteers to address quality of life, education and economic issues in our community and our state.”

Black said IESR will seek to better connect social responsibility and ethical development to the academic mission of the University.

“The initiative has the significant goal of linking curriculum and the campus culture by establishing multiple sites through which students can engage in meaningful service for academic credit and thoughtful consideration of the ethical obligations they have toward their fellow citizens,” he said.

IESR is supported by a gift from Mignon C. Smith, an Alabama resident who also resides in Washington, D.C., in honor of the lives and accomplishments of Alabama business and civic leader J. Craig Smith and his wife, Page T. Smith. In addition to funding the initiative, the gift also established the J. Craig Smith Endowed Chair for Integrity in Business.

IESR’s programs will include:

Assisting with the development of service-learning courses for academic credit across all academic disciplines
Implementing a “ Moral Forum ” University-wide debate competition
Developing a multi-disciplinary ethics/social responsibility minor
Incorporating ethical discourse into freshman orientation
Developing a justicebased anthropological documentary filmmaking/ journalism class
Offering fellowship opportunities
Sponsoring public lectures
Providing opportunities for visiting scholars to affiliate with IESR

Black earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from Yale Law School. Following law school, he joined the Birmingham law firm of Maynard, Cooper and Gale. He spent a year serving as an assistant to the governor in 2000-2001, where he researched policy issues and worked on economic development projects. He also created Impact: An Alabama Student Service Initiative, the state’s first non-profit organization dedicated to developing and implementing substantive service-learning projects in coordination with select universities and junior colleges throughout the state.

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