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Last modified: Friday, April 19, 2013

IU's Poynter Center announces inaugural Jesse Fine Fellowships

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 19, 2013

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions has announced that four Indiana University Bloomington faculty will receive the inaugural Jesse Fine Fellowships in Practical and Professional Ethics.

Each recipient will receive funding to develop a new course or make major changes to a previous course in professional or practical ethics. The fellowship is made possible by a gift from Dorothy Fine to the Poynter Center in honor of her husband, IU graduate Jesse Fine. The fellowships support the expansion of ethics education in practical and professional ethics.

"These four recipients are working on innovative projects that reflect a commitment to interdisciplinary approaches to ethics," said Richard Miller, director of the Poynter Center. "They will greatly enrich their students and their respective curricula by providing new pathways for interrogating the normative dimensions of their particular areas of training and expertise."

The recipients are:

  • Ronald Day, associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science, "S604: Information Ethics Across Technologies, Media, Institutions and Societies." The course responds to student demand for a practical ethics course to complement policy and intellectual freedom course offerings.
  • Shannon Gayk, associate professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences, "L240: Literature and Public Life." Special topic: "Representing the Poor." The service-learning course integrates literary study of how the poor are represented in three different eras (medieval, Victorian and contemporary) with service work in which students interact with disadvantaged residents of Bloomington.
  • Joshua Perry, assistant professor of business law and ethics, Kelley School of Business, "L514: Critical Thought and Practical Wisdom." This is a new required course in the graduate-level accounting program, designed to add critical thinking to the curriculum. The Fine Fellowship will support developing a syllabus that teaches critical thinking through an ethics framework.
  • Laura Roush, graduate student, Department of Criminal Justice, College of Arts and Sciences, "P330: Criminal Justice Ethics." Roush will restructure an undergraduate course in practical ethics in the field.

About the Poynter Center

The Poynter Center, established in 1972, is an endowed ethics research center at Indiana University Bloomington dedicated to studying a broad range of ethical issues in American public life. Interdisciplinary in aim, the center uses the full resources of Indiana University to initiate research and teaching across traditional academic boundaries. In recent years, the Poynter Center has focused on bioethics, religion, political ethics, research ethics, professional ethics and technology.

About Jesse Fine

Jesse David Fine (1907-1985) received an A.B. degree from Indiana University in 1928 and a law degree from the Indiana University School of Law in 1930. Fine practiced law in Evansville from 1930 to 1936. He and his two brothers owned Premier Theaters in Evansville. Their business evolved from theaters to television stations.

Fine married Dorothy Seegal in 1958. Once Dorothy Fine became involved with Indiana University through the IU Mini University, she wanted to create a fellowship in practical and professional ethics in her husband's name. She died in 2010. These fellowships are the result of her generosity.