The Center draws on campus-wide expertise, reaches beyond campus to the community, and facilitates research, conversation, scholarship, and productive work across disciplinary and town-gown boundaries. To be maximally effective, it seeks to create and sustain local, national, and international scholarly and public bioethics conversations and collaborations, fostering dialogue and developing opportunities with those whom it will serve.
Research, Scholarship, and Faculty Development
The CBHS supports bioethics research, scholarship and faculty development in the following ways:
- Small grants for novel and interdisciplinary collaborative projects, administered through a competitive review process.
- Creation of a ‘think tank’ approach to collaborative bioethics research, scholarship, communication, and education, including faculty development ‘salons’ to discuss current topics, readings, and works in progress, and to elicit program ideas.
- Grant proposal advice and assistance. Emphasis is placed on interdisciplinary collaborations, with the expectation that collaborations will lead to fundable project applications, new courses, publications, etc.
Visiting Scholar and Graduate Student Assistantship Program
To promote intellectual crossfertilization, the CBHS hosts a Visiting Scholar Program and draws from the Graduate Student Assistantship Program created by the Master in Bioethics program. Collaboration with bioethics scholars at other institutions (including postdoctoral fellows and faculty of any rank) is fostered by short-term funded visits or fellowships, ranging in scope from 1 week to 1 semester. In addition, graduate assistants in the Master of Arts in Bioethics program are designated to work with Center faculty and pursue Center-relevant individual projects. Assistantships are 1 or 2 years in length.
Education and Public Discourse
The CBHS conducts public educational activities, including:
- National conferences
- Public seminars, small local conferences, or workshops (e.g., a “Science and Society” seminar series or local Science Cafes; ethics education for area health facilities; bioethics film and discussion series connected with area libraries or schools; etc.).
- Student project support
- Bioethics course development at both the undergraduate and graduate levels (including practicum experiences, externships, etc.).
- Educational seminars, workshops, and short courses for faculty and students at WFU (and potentially other area universities).
Outreach and Collaboration
The CBHS constantly works to identify regional partnership opportunities, including collaborative activity plans, community input, and public-private partnership development. The CBHS is working to form a pan-institutional consortium that is able to coordinate and collaborate on bioethics activities across Tennessee, Virginia (excluding D.C.), Georgia, Florida, Alabama, North and South Carolina. Collaborations will include research projects; conferences, seminars, and short courses; the sharing of visiting scholars and other resources, and the like.