A concern for the ethical instruction and formation of students has always been a part of American higher education. Yet that concern has by no means been uniform or free from controversy. The centrality of moral philosophy in the undergraduate curriculum during the mid-19th Century gave way later during that era to the first signs of increasing specialization of the disciplines. By the middle of the 20th Century, instruction in ethics had, by and large, become confined almost exclusively to departments of philosophy and religion. Efforts to introduce ethics teaching in the professional schools and elsewhere in the university often met with indifference or outright hostility. The past decade has seen a remarkable resurgence of the interest in the teaching of ethics, at both the undergraduate and the professional school levels. Beginning in 1977, The Hastings Center, with the support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, undertook a system atic study of the state of the teaching of ethics in American higher education.

This book features articles by more than twenty experienced teachers of ethics who are committed to the idea that ethics can and should be taught virtually anywhere in the education curriculum. They explore a variety of ways in which this might best be done. Traditionally confined largely to programs in philosophy and religion, the teaching of ethics has in recent decades spread across the curriculum education. The contributors to this book discuss the rationale for supporting such efforts, the variety of challenges these efforts face, and the sorts of benefits faculty and students who participate in ethics across the curriculum endeavors can expect. An overriding theme of this book is that the teaching of ethics should not be restricted to one or two courses in philosophy or religion programs, but rather be addressed wherever relevant anywhere in the curriculum. For example, accredited engineering programs are expected to ensure that their students are introduced to the ethical dimensions of engineering. This can involve consideration of ethical issues within particular areas of engineering (e.g., civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical) as distinctive segments of certain courses (e.g., those that focus on design problems), or as a full semester course in ethics in engineering. Similar approaches can be taken in nursing, medicine, law, social work, psychology, accountancy, management, and so on. That is, some emphasis on ethics can be expected to be found in broad range of academic disciplines. However, many ethical issues require careful attention from the perspectives of several disciplines at once, and in ways that require their joining hands. Recognizing that adequately addressing many ethical issues may require the inclusion of perspectives from a variety of disciplines makes apparent the need for effective communication and reflection across disciplines, not simply within them. This, in turn, suggests that faculty and their students can benefit from special programs that are designed to include participants from a variety of disciplines. Such programs will be a central feature of this book. Although some differences might arise in how such issues might best be discussed across different parts of the curriculum, these discussions might be joined in ways that help students, faculty, administrators, and the wider public better appreciate their shared ethical ground.

Based on the results of their successful eight-year faculty seminar, Michael Boylan and James Donahue provide a practical framework and concrete suggestions for engaging questions of ethics in the university curriculum. This framework will enable college and university professors to address a full range of ethical issues as they arise in classroom discussion, both in the academic disciplines and in professional education. This book contains the insights of both a philosopher and a theologian as it draws on classic theories of ethics in multiple disciplines. It is designed for use by humanists and theists alike. The book provides means for educators and students to work through the following kinds of questions: What ought I to do when faced with ethical choices? What kinds of persons do we aspire to be? What are the ethical messages conveyed in our intellectual disciplines? How do the professions and professional choices reflect ideas of a good society? Ethics across the Curriculum: A Practice-Based Approach will be an essential guide for developing curriculum and pedagogical goals to meet the challenges of ethics education. It will be a great help for professors, school administrators, and all interested in ethics in the university context.

"Nursing Ethics is a comprehensive, well-written text that provides pre-licensure nursing students with an understanding of ethical issues in the current healthcare climate and underscores the many ways in which ethics affects all levels of nursing care. Divided into three sections - Foundational Theories, Concepts and Professional Issues; Moving into Ethics Across the Lifespan; and Ethics Related to Special Issues - the current edition seamlessly aligns with the cornerstones of the nursing curriculum, providing a solid ethical foundation for pre-licensure nursing students and making it a perfect fit for almost any course"--