Immortal Life: Death (26 Sept)

Please comment, question, discuss ideas/topics/concerns from the second section of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Immortal Life: Immortality (3 Oct)

Please comment, question, discuss ideas/topics/concerns from the third section of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Immortal Life: Life (5 Sept)

Please comment, question, discuss ideas/topics/concerns from the first section of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Love (14 Nov)

I think this last chapter will be worth the wait.  I'm very much looking forward to discussion of it with you.

Humor (7 Nov) Kirchner

Andrea:  I hope you've been saving up good jokes to help illustrate the points of this chapter. . .

Good Faith (7 Nov)

Important quotes from the chapter?  Ties to other material?

Gentleness (31 Oct)

No specific discussion leader, but you know the drill by now.

Purity (31 Oct) Stephenson

Jon:  looking forward to your discussion prompts.  Especially how you'll tie Purity to Halloween...

Tolerance (24 Oct) Smith

Karlie, you're up for awesome prompts on Tolerance.

Simplicity (24 Oct) J Ruwe

Joe:  This topic might be deceptively simple.

Humility (17 Oct) D. Ruwe

Dan:  I cannot wait to hear what you've got to say on this topic.

Mercy (10 Oct) Kirley

JJ: make us think about mercy, please.

Compassion (10 Oct) Hinken

Kelsey:  what say ye about compassion?

Generosity (3 Oct) Hart

Kaylan, I don't think this will be a hard area for you to lead us in discussion.

Justice (3 Oct) Geiger

Julie:  your turn to start the conversation.

Courage (26 Sept) Gamel

Ellen will start our conversation with very excellent prompts.

Temperance (26 Sept) Erne

Brianna will provide provocative discussion prompts.

Prudence (12 Sept) Cerimele

Michael will start us off with discussion prompts.

Fidelity (12 Sept) Beckemeyer

Comment here on Fidelity.  Holly will start us off with a few insightful discussion prompts.

Politeness (29 Aug)

Comment here on the 1st chapter of A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues.  To start with, do you think that Comte-Sponville is right that politeness "serves as a foundation for the moral development of the individual"?  With what else do you agree?  Disagree?

Welcome!

I know most of us know each other fairly well, but would you go ahead and formally introduce yourselves, noting anything remotely relevant to research (you've participated as a research subject, you are studying science, you are/will/have been engaged in research at TMC or elsewhere, you've read a book about research, etc.).

I'll start:

I'm Dr. Cate and my greatest academic love is medical ethics, followed closely by 1) study of death and dying, and work with hospice, and 2) philosophy of science.  I have also recently become more involved with ethics in emergency medicine (co-teaching ethics workshops to EMTs and paramedics).  To prepare to teach this course, I attended (with Dr. Barone of TMC Biology) a week-long international research ethics course at Harvard School of Public Health in June 2010.   I am also still quite in love with Virtue Ethics and so we will dive more deeply into it than in other ethical theories.

I am part of the QEP cohort this year, and so have framed this course with the tenets of critical thinking.  Part of my research will be using you as guinea pigs in how to teach research ethics and critical thinking. :)

This course will be very open.  Please feel free to "try on" ideas, views, opinions that you do not necessarily believe, but are willing to explore with the rest of us.  I do not care *what* you believe as much as I will try to guide you to think more clearly and with good reasons which you can readily articulate.

I am looking forward to spending this semester with you.
Dr. Cate