Great Thinkers in the History of Democracy
Citizens of Utah ought to know about the history of democracy. To this end six lectures on great historical figures in the history of the development of Democracy will be held in the evenings during the 2008-2009 academic year, three in during the fall semester and three during the spring semester. (The UVU Political Science Program is cosponsor of this series.)Ethics Awareness Week Panel Discussions
On September 16 and 17, 2008, a series of panel discussions on contemporary public policy issues were conducted on campus. These panels will bring students, faculty, staff, and community members into dialogue with experts on pressing public policy issues.Excellence in Ethics Award
A recipient will be chosen by the ethics center Faculty Advisory Committee for the Excellence in Ethics Award. The recipient will be chosen on the basis of grass-roots engagement in the democratic process.Annual Ethics and Public Policy Symposium
A symposium on Politics and Science is being organized for September 18, 2008. We look to scientists to provide us with unbiased faculty information on which to found public policy. But what happens when science itself is influenced by politics? This symposium will take a hard and unblinking look at the problem of the politicization of science.Faculty Summer Seminar
The Faculty Summer Seminar is aimed at faculty development in teaching and scholarship. In May 2008, Omar Kader, President and CEO of Planning and Learning Technologies, a NGO based in the Washington D.C. area, will be the visiting scholar in a five-day seminar on the topic of the art of political negotiation between adversaries. The art of such negotiation is central to the democratic process.Series on Democratic Citizenship and the 2008 Election: What Informed Citizens Should Know
Leading up to Election Day November 4, 2008, a series of public events will be organized by the Peace and Justice Studies Program at UVSC aimed at furthering the goal of political literacy generally and the Democracy and Globalism programmatic component specifically. These will include a series of weekly events from week of September 22 to the week of November 3, culminating in the event “Democracy in Action across the US: the High Road for Human Rights” presented by Rocky Anderson, Executive Director, High Road for Human Rights.Democracy and Religion
Democracy in Utah is unique in several interesting ways: members of the dominant religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, tend to overwhelming vote Republican, even though there is no official proclamation from the church leadership to do so, and despite suggestions by some Mormon academics that the Democratic political platform is in fact closer to the values of LDS doctrine than the Republican political platform. These interesting dynamics that characterize the democratic process in Utah will be explored in public forums organized by the Religious Studies Program at UVSC. Topics to be covered will include Community Roundtable on Religious and Civic Virtue, a dialogue between religious and secular perspectives on issues that face our community including growing religious and ethnic diversity, civic participation, and educational and economic opportunity, and the separation of Church and State.Democracy Week
To coincide with the energy of the November 2008 General Election, the Center will invite mayors of the Utah Third Congressional District to declare October 19-25, 2008, as Democracy Week in their townships. Each day of the week, residents will be encouraged to take place in activities related to democratic engagement.Community Councils
The Utah Democracy Project aims to duplicate in the metropolitan areas of Provo and Orem on peer-based democracy the excellent work that Jeffrey Nielsen carried out with Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson in August 2007. Dr. Nielsen will conduct a series of citizen councils on the issue of immigration. The citizen councils on immigration will participate in democracy week by holding Saturday forums to talk about the experience, results, and various thoughts on the issue of immigration. Mayor Jerry Washburn of Orem will be invited to send letters of invitation to the participants.Teaching Democracy to Children
The Center will endeavor to host an international conference under the auspices of Far Western Philosophy of Education Society (FWPES) to address Democracy and Education in higher education as well as in the K-12 curriculum with a keynote speech on the topic Education and Democracy; dedicating an issue of the FWPES journal on the topic will be explored. You can access the FWPES website here.Democracy and Service-Learning
The International Service-Learning Conference will be held at UVSC fall 2008. A Call for Papers on the topic of Service-Learning and Democracy will be added as a component of this conference. Other opportunities for democracy and service-learning will be explored as the project matures.Presidential Roundtable on Democracy
Each academic year an open public forum will be organized by the Office of the President featuring elected officials discussing the opportunities and challenges of living in a democracy society.Student Internships
Each academic year the Center will facilitate six students obtaining internships at the offices of elected Utah officials. These internships will be coordinated through the Office of the President and the College Placement Office at UVSC.Democracy for Secondary Students
A program will be developed that sends college students to local schools to discuss democratic theory with K-12 students, as well as a summer camp in which high school students from Utah schools are invited to the UVSC campus to participate in various activities that explore democracy in practice. This will include a high school Ethics Bowl (based on the model set by the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics) that brings students to campus to participate in such an event.Democracy in the Field
Each spring a seminar on the fundamentals of democracy political science and then a student field trip based on the investigation of a current public policy issue in Utah County will be conducted in a paradigm of engaged learning.Discussions on Democracy
Visiting scholars for public events will be recruited to participate in a series of videotaped roundtable discussions titled Discussions on Democracy lasting fifty-seven minutes, for broadcast in one hour time slots on cable television and the Internet. The shows will be taped in our campus television studio. These shows will be taped throughout the three-year grant period.Website
A detailed and informative website has been constructed at <http://www.uvu.edu/ethics/utahdemocracyproject/> as an information hub for the entire project.Short Lectures on Ethics
The ability for citizens to make judicious and ethical decisions is the underpinning of the democratic process. To this end, the basic ethical theories of the Western intellectual tradition which have great utility. David Keller will produce and record eight lectures of thirty minutes or less on ethics which will be posted on the Internet on order to provide short and accessible overviews of basic ethics.Lectures on Personal Accountability in the Public Law Making Process
Neil Evans will produce and record eight thirty-minute lectures on basic civics and the legislative process which will be posted on the Internet and available on DVD.
Center for the Study of Ethics : don.lavange@UVU.EDU | 801.863.6455