Center for Ethics & Leadership

Introduction

"Institutions of higher education have a responsibility to the society that sponsors and nurtures them, as well as to their students and to people who work for them."
 –Donald Kennedy in Academic Duty (Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 23

Throughout its history, Alvernia University has aimed not only to develop students’ intellectual promise but also to foster their ethical and moral perspectives and emphasize their leadership potential. The Center for Ethics and Leadership (CEL) seeks to build on this tradition and on the expertise of diverse faculty to deepen and extend Alvernia’s commitment to ethics and leadership education, scholarship, and service, both on and beyond the campus. The Center promotes interdisciplinary dialogue around social justice and Franciscan values, and the integration of teaching and scholarship into service-leadership for a sustainable future.

The idea for CEL emerged from President Thomas Flynn’s campus-wide discussions during the fall of 2005. It became clear that Alvernia already valued ethics and leadership education—all undergraduate and graduate programs incorporate required work in ethics, and a new interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Leadership was being launched. There was considerable faculty enthusiasm for making ethics and leadership education a distinctive feature of Alvernia. In April 2006, President Flynn announced Alvernia’s intention to develop both the Holleran Center for Community Engagement (HCCE) and CEL. They would build on existing efforts and serve as catalysts for expanded faculty and student collaboration, while drawing on community resources and expertise. Through diverse programs and activities, the Centers would enhance Alvernia’s contributions to the community and its reputation.

On July 1, 2007, Dr. Gerald S. Vigna was named the Center’s founding director. Dr. Vigna is an Associate Professor of Theology and served many years as Dean of Arts and Sciences. He charted a course for continuous dialogue among students and faculty around ethical issues and challenges for both leaders and followers.

On July 1, 2010, Dr. Spencer S. Stober was named director. Dialogue will continue as a strategy for the Center, but there is also an ever-growing need for academic institutions to marshal intellectual resources and provide active service-leadership to sustain our world. Dialogue informed by Franciscan values with our many communities around environmental and social justice issues is a first step. The integration of teaching and scholarship into service with our many communities to promote environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability is an important strategy to achieve CEL’s ultimate goal: to develop a cadre of experts who work with our community partners to sustain our environment and cultures for generations to come.