AME Forum
Volume 24, Number 2, Summer 2008
AM E Leaders
President: James Conroy
Treasurer: Garrett Albert
Duncan
Past-president: John Snarey
Secretary: Nancy Nordmann
Communications Coordinator:
Tonia Bock
Conference Site Selection:
Clark Power
AM E Board
M embers
2007-2010:
Kaye Cook, Andrew Garrod,
Clary Milnitsky-Sapiro,
Robert Selman
2006-2009:
Wolfgang Althof, Charles &
Ronnie Blakeney, Rebecca
Glover, Julio Rique
2005-2008:
Phyllis Curtis-Tweed, Dan
Lapsley, Dawn Schrader,
Stephen Sherblom
Appointees:
Jane Hongjuan Zhang, Elly
Vozzola
Inquiries
Inquiries about the newsletter’s
content and information about how
to place announcements in the
next issue should be addressed to
the Editor:
Tonia Bock, Ph.D.
JRC LL 56, Psychology Dept.
University of St. Thomas
2115 Summit Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55105 USA
E-mail: tsbock@stthomas.edu
Change of Address
For change of address information
or problems with receipt of issues,
contact:
Association for Moral Education
c/o Nancy Nordmann, Ph.D.
Dept. of Social and Behavioral
Sciences
National-Louis University
122 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60603 USA
3 4 th A n n u a l A s s o c i a t i o n
for Moral Education
conference
November 13-16, 2008
University of Notre Dame
South Bend, IN, USA
Conference chair:
Clark Power, University of Notre Dame
Conference committee:
Dan Lapsley, University of Notre Dame
Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame
Anthony Holter, University of Notre Dame
Kendall Cotton Bronk, Ball State University
Alesha Serocyznski, Bethel College
Jay Brandenberger, University of Notre Dame
Patti McCready, University of Notre Dame
Pat Hill, University of Notre Dame
Register and get further information at:
http://www.nd.edu/%7Eame2008/
Registration information
Registration fees include all meeting materials, refreshments, AME
membership and subscription to the Journal of Moral Education. Full
registration fee is $250.00 before October 1, $275.00 after. Student
registration is $150.00 prior to October 1 and $175.00 after.
AME Forum , Summer 2008
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Conference Theme
“Faith, Democracy and Values:
The Challenge of Moral Formation in Families, Schools, and Societies”
This conference challenges participants to reflect on the ways in which
moral education informs and is in turn informed by faith and political
perspectives in a diverse and complex global community. How can moral
education influence our deepest aspirations for universal peace and
justice, and how can moral education strengthen old and new
democracies around the world?
Kohlberg Memorial Lecture
The Kohlberg Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Dr. James
Youniss, the Wylma R. & James. R. Curtin Professor of
Psychology at Catholic University and Fellow of the Life Cycle
Institute. Dr. Youniss and his students study the impact of
community service and other kinds of activism on youth's civicpolitical and moral development. Their research shows that the
effectiveness of service depends on the kind of program within
which it occurs (i.e., type of service, organizers of the service,
rationale for service). Dr. Youniss is also part of a team that
studies the well-being of religiously-affiliated colleges and
universities in the United States.
Keynote Speaker
Carolyn Nordstrom, professor in the Anthropology Department at
the University of Notre Dame, is the keynote speaker for the
Saturday plenary session. Carolyn Nordstrom's principal areas of
interest are the anthropology of war and peace, illegal economies
and power, gender, globalization, and culture theory. She has
conducted extensive fieldwork in warzones worldwide, with longterm interests in Southern Africa and South Asia. Nordstrom has over
five dozen scholarly articles, and several academic books. She has
recently received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2004 2005), John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship (2001 - 2002)
as well as numerous other grants.
AME Forum , Summer 2008
2008 Conference Program Highlights
Thursday, November 13
During day:
Pre-Conference Symposium on the Moral Personality
Evening:
Opening conference reception
Friday, November 14
Morning:
Kohlberg Memorial Lecture:
James Youniss, Catholic University of America
Mid-day:
Poster Session
Saturday, November 15
Morning:
Plenary Address:
Carolyn Nordstrom, University of Notre Dame
Afternoon:
AME Community Meeting
Evening:
AME Banquet
Page 3
AME Forum , Summer 2008
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Pre-Conference Symposium on the Moral Personality
9:00 – 4:00, Thursday, November 13, 2008
This is the second Notre Dame Symposium on the Moral Personality. The first was held in 2006.
The symposium is sponsored by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and the Henkels
Lecture Series, University of Notre Dame.
Several intellectual issues will be discussed prominently at the symposium.
1. In what ways, if any, do the literatures of the human sciences, including the
neurosciences, develop and refine certain assumptions underlying traditional moral
theory? Is this even a sensible notion?
2. What are defensible forms of ethical naturalism and which form(s), if any, are most
productive of significant empirical work in psychology?
3. What features of moral agency are well-attested by psychological evidence and
philosophical analysis?
4. Is there such thing as a moral personality? If so, what are its features? How is it
manifested in behavior? How does it develop?
5. What are implications of the present work for guiding reflective decision-making? For
moral formation?
6. What is the proper boundary between ethical theory and psychology in the study
of moral psychology?
Cost: The cost for the 2008 symposium is $60.00 prior to October 1, increasing to $75.00 after.
Student pre-conference symposium student registration is $40.00 before October 1, increasing to
$55.00 after.
Registration: Registering for the pre-conference symposium is an option that must be chosen
when registering for the AME conference.
Organizers: Darcia Narvaez and Daniel K. Lapsley, University of Notre Dame
SYMPOSIUM SPEAKERS:
Owen Flanagan, Duke University: “The Moral Self from the Perspective of the Mind Sciences
and Naturalized Ethics”
Owen Flanagan (Ph.D. 1977, Boston University) joined the Duke faculty in 1993 as Chair of the
Department of Philosophy. He also holds appointments in Psychology and Neurobiology and is a
Faculty Fellow in Cognitive Neuroscience. His books include Identity, Character, and Morality:
Essays in Moral Psychology, edited with Amelie O. Rorty (MIT Press, 1990), Varieties of Moral
Personality: Ethics and Psychological Realism (Harvard University Press, 1991), Self Expressions:
Mind, Morals, and the Meaning of Life (Oxford University Press, 1996), The Problem of the Soul:
Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile Them (Basic Books, 2003).
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Moral Personality Symposium Speakers (cont.)
John Doris, Washington University: “Moral Coherence or Lack of Character?”
Doris’ research is located at the intersection of psychology, cognitive science, and philosophical
ethics. His book Lack of Character (Cambridge 2002) argues that reflection on experimental
social psychology problematizes familiar conceptions of moral character. Doris’ current research
involves both theoretical and empirical research on moral responsibility, evaluative diversity,
psychopathology, and the self.
Jorge Moll, National Institutes of Health: “How Neurosciences Inform Moral Psychology”
He graduated in Medicine from the Federal University of the Rio de Janeiro (1994) and
completed medical residence in Neurology in the same university in 1997. His doctorate is in
Sciences (Fisiopatologia Experimental -Human Physiology) by the University of São Paulo (2004).
He specializes in cognitive neuroscience, focusing on the neural bases moral cognition and
behavior, neuroscience & social psychology, moral emotions and antisocial behavior, through
clinical studies and neuropsychological studies of patients with neuropsychologcial disturbances
using experiments of functional magnetic resonance.
Linda Skitka, University of Illinois-Chicago: “Moral Conviction, Identity and Justice Reasoning”
She has three major areas of interrelated research, and each aims at understanding how
people’s belief systems shape their thoughts, feelings, and behavior. More specifically, her core
research focus is on (a) how people reason about justice and fairness, (b) how attitudes held as
strong moral convictions (i.e., beliefs about right and wrong, moral and immoral) differ in
antecedents and consequences from otherwise strong, but non-moral attitudes, and (c)
understanding different aspects of political reasoning, and in particular, the cognitive and
motivational underpinnings of the left-right political divide.
David Wong, Duke University: “Pluralism and Moral Identity”
David Wong (Ph.D. Princeton, 1977) is the Susan Fox Beischer and George D. Beischer Professor
of Philosophy. His works include Moral Relativity (University of California Press, 1984) and
Natural Moralities (Oxford University Press, 2006. His research includes 1) the nature and extent
of moral differences and similarities across and within societies and how these differences and
similarities bear on questions about the objectivity and universality of morality; 2) the attempt to
understand morality naturalistically as arising from the attempt of human beings to structure
their cooperation and to convey to each other what kinds of lives they have found to be worth
living; 3) the nature of conflicts between basic moral values and how these give rise to moral
differences across and within societies; 4) how we attempt to deal with such conflicts in moral
deliberation; 5) the relevance of comparative philosophy, especially Chinese-Western
(Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism) comparative philosophy, to the above subjects; 6) Whether
our reasons to feel and act are based solely on what we already desire or whether reasons
transcend what we desire and are used to critically evaluate and shape our desires; 7) the extent
to which a person's recognizing that she has reasons to feel and act in certain ways can enter
into the constitution of her emotions and change those emotions.
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Getting to the Conference
Arrival by air
The South Bend Regional Airport is about 15 minutes by car from the
Notre Dame campus (flights should be booked to South Bend, Indiana).
From the airport, go east on Lincolnway West (left out of the airport) to
downtown South Bend. Turn left on Indiana 933 (Michigan Street) and
proceed about two miles to Angela Boulevard. Turn right onto Angela, and
then turn left at the second stoplight (Eddy Street). Follow signs to visitor
parking.
There is taxi ground transportation at the South Bend Regional Airport.
The fare is approximately $12-15 to the conference hotel(s).
Visitors also can fly to Chicago and drive or take a bus to Notre Dame. The
university is about two hours by car from Chicago’s O'Hare International
Airport and about 90 minutes from Midway International Airport. From
O'Hare, take I-190 east out of the airport, merge onto I-90 east (the
Kennedy Expressway) toward downtown Chicago and merge with I-94
south (the Dan Ryan Expressway). Take the Skyway exit off the Dan Ryan
and remain on I-90 to the Indiana Toll Road, which merges with I-80.
From the Illinois border, it is about 75 miles to Exit 77 (the South
Bend/Notre Dame exit).
Arrival by car
From the north: The University is located just south of the Indiana Toll
Road (Interstate 80/90). Exit I-80/90 at Exit 77 and turn right onto Indiana
933. Make a left at the fourth stop light (Angela Boulevard), then turn left
at the second stoplight (Eddy Street). Follow signs to visitor parking.
From the south: Take U.S. 31 north which becomes Indiana 933 just south
of the city of South Bend. Stay on Indiana 933 through downtown South
Bend to Angela Boulevard. Turn right onto Angela, and then turn left at
the second stoplight (Eddy Street). Follow signs to visitor parking.
Arrival by train
Chicago-South Bend train
The South Shore Line trains run directly from the Chicago Loop (corner of
Michigan and Randolph) to South Bend Regional Airport in South Bend
(about a 2 hour trip). From the airport, the Notre Dame campus is
approximately a 15 minute ride by car. Various transportation methods are
available (i.e., taxi, rental car, limo). There is taxi ground transportation at
the South Bend Regional Airport. The fare is approximately $12-15 to the
conference hotel(s).
Campus map available at:
http://nd.edu/campusand-community/campusmap/
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Hotel Accommodations
Rooms are available at the Morris Inn (on campus), as well
as at the Inn at Saint Mary's, which is approximately one
mile from campus, and at the adjacent property Hilton
Garden Inn. Single room rate at the Morris Inn is $149.16
and double $170.24 (both rates include tax and breakfast).
Single or double rooms at the Inn at Saint Mary's, including
tax and breakfast are $122.04. Hilton Garden Inn rate for
single or double occupancy including tax and breakfast is
$123.12.
2009 Conference Location Announced
The Association for Moral Education is pleased to announce the date and location of the 2009
conference:
July 2-4, 2009 at Utrecht University in the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands
More information about the 2009 conference will be forthcoming.
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Association for Moral Education Dissertation Award
Call for Submissions – NOTE EARLIER DEADLINE
The Association for Moral Education gives an annual Kuhmerker Dissertation Award for an outstanding doctoral
dissertation (eg PhD, Ed.D., Psy.D. etc). The annual award gives recognition and commendation to doctoral students
addressing work that informs, develops, or relates to, the understanding of moral development, moral functioning or
moral education. The AME invites submissions from all fields, including psychology, philosophy, pedagogy, cultural
studies and so forth. The AME invites dissertations in both English and in languages other than English, and from
recent doctoral students of any nationality. The dissertation must have been completed and the degree awarded
within 3 years (36 months) prior to the submission deadline.
Authors do not need to be a member of the Association to receive the award, but we would like the recipient to
attend the AME annual conference for a formal presentation. The award includes an attractive plaque and, if the
recipient attends the conference, their conference fee and banquet fee will be paid by the AME and they will receive
$500 to help with hotel and travel expenses.
The next submission deadline is NOVEMBER 15 2008. This is earlier than usual as next year’s AME
conference will be held in JULY rather than November. The committee’s decision will be announced
publicly at the 2009 AME conference, which is in July 2009 at Utrecht University in The Netherlands.
The submission process is in two parts. By November 15 2008 you are requested to provide a 3000-word summary
of the dissertation, in English, in a pdf file. The Dissertation Award Committee will shortlist appropriate submissions
for progression to the next stage. Those shortlisted will be invited to submit their complete dissertation in the
original language, as a pdf file, by January 15 2009. The Dissertation Committee will draw upon scholars with
appropriate language skills to judge dissertations presented in a language other than English, once the shortlisting
of initial proposals in English is completed.
To submit your dissertation:
You need to submit the following by November 15:
1. A letter of introduction, in English, which explains what you consider to be the most important contributions
that your dissertation makes to the field. Such contributions may be to theory, methodology, using unusual
respondent samples, or addressing particular social or educational policy or practice issues. This should not
exceed 2 pages.
2. A letter in English from your mentor, who will normally have served in an advisory role during your doctoral
work, but may exceptionally be someone else familiar with your work.
3. A 3000-word summary of your dissertation, in English. This should include a summary of your theoretical
approach and argument, and if your dissertation is research-based, your methods, your main results and
some discussion of their implications.
4. Details of your contact addresses (mail and email), phone number(s), the dates of your doctoral programme
and award of degree, name and department of the institution awarding the degree, and the name(s) of your
dissertation supervisor(s) and examiner(s), including their institutions.
If you are shortlisted, you will be invited to submit your complete dissertation in the original language
in pdf format by January 15, 2009. The Dissertation Committee has no restriction on the number of proposals
that it may shortlist; judgment will be on quality alone.
Please submit your materials to:
Dr Helen Haste
Chair, AME Dissertation Award Committee
Harvard Graduate School of Education
Email hastehe@gse.harvard.edu; Phone 1 617 354 1544
If you have any queries please contact the Chair by email.
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Sharon Lamb’s Sabbatical Scholarship
Finding a Wide Audience
Dr. Sharon Lamb, winner of the 2007 AME Sabbatical Grant (generously funded by the Gift of
Time Foundation), has been using her sabbatical to create a sexual ethics curriculum for older
high school students that would work in tandem with a health curriculum. Her overall goal for
the year was to develop twelve weeks of material that incorporated elements of philosophy and
psychology, to teach about virtues and how they apply to sexual behavior, raise moral
development through the use of Kohlbergian just classroom procedures, and encourage
adolescents to enter into a dialog about “how you treat people when you grow into your
sexuality.” Recently Lamb shared her expertise in adolescent sexuality in a June 27 article in the
Chronicle of Higher Education, a major source of news, information, and jobs for Englishspeaking college and university faculty members and administrators. The online version of the
Chronicle is visited by more than one million unique visitors per month and the print version has
a total readership of 350,000.
“The ‘Right’ Sexuality for Girls” argues that scholars set up “an elusive ideal” of sexual health for
young women rooted in “pleasure, voice, and desire” that can unwittingly “lead to false
empowerment and isolation.” Sharon examines the way this grounding derives from a fear of
objectification and argues that all humans want to be both objects and subjects of desire, but all
too often girls become victims of marketers “who have been feeding (them) a steady stream of
messages that equate porn with power and subjectivity.” She advises that researchers might do
better “to recommend the goal of mutuality with a partner: mutual respect, pleasure,
excitement, and interest. Choosing, for example, to please someone else as well as being
pleased, among other goals, would reinforce the idea that a morally good sexual relationship
should meet the same standards as other good relationships.”
Association for Moral Education members have a long history of creating developmental
interventions and curricula rooted in sound theory and research (e.g., Lawrence Kohlberg’s Just
Community schools and John Gibb’s EQUIP program to name but a few). As United States school
systems increasingly turn down federal dollars for the abstinence only sexual education programs
that have proven so ineffective, projects like Sharon Lamb’s sexual ethics curriculum will provide
a welcome alternative.
(If you or your institution has a subscription to the Chronicle—many college libraries subscribe
and offer access through their databases-- you can access Sharon’s article at:
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i42/42b01401.htm)
Elizabeth Vozzola, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, Saint Joseph College
West Hartford, CT, USA
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In Memoriam
Richard A. Graham
Richard A. Graham, the first director of the Center for Moral Education at Harvard University,
died on Sept. 24, 2007, at the age of 86, of a stroke. Dick Graham entered public service in
1961 as a deputy to Sargent Shriver, the first director of the Peace Corps. From 1963 to 1965,
he was director of the Peace Corps in Tunisia. When the National Organization for Women
began, Dr. Graham served as vice president. He was an original member of the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as the founding director of the National Teacher
Corps. Dr Graham will be remembered as a moral exemplar who created and strengthened
institutions to advance social justice and peace.
Vic Battistich
Dr. Vic Battistich, Associate Professor in the Division of Educational Psychology, Research, and
Evaluation in the College of Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL), died
suddenly and unexpectedly on June 30, 2008. He is survived by his wife, Martha Montgomery,
and his daughters, Kaitlin and Sarah. Prior coming to UMSL in 2003, Dr. Battistich co-founded
and, for over 20 years, was senior researcher at the Developmental Studies Center in Oakland,
CA—a nonprofit educational research and development organization dedicated to fostering the
social, ethical, and intellectual development of children through school-based programs and
curricula. The Center’s programs, most notably the Child Development Project, and its
extensive educational research and evaluation activities are widely recognized for their quality,
and have received numerous awards and designations as “exemplary” from such organizations
as the American Association of School Administrators, the Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S.
Department of Education. Charles Schmitz, Dean of the College of Education at UMSL,
described Vic as “a great person, a very honorable man, brilliant in intellect, one who cared
deeply, and one who touched all those around him with his humor, his insights, and his
humanity.” His family has requested that if people want to make a memorial donation in his
honor that it go to UMSL’s Center for Character and Citizenship. Send contributions to Beatrice
Shivers, Center for Character and Citizenship, College of Education, One University Boulevard,
St. Louis, MO 63121.
AME Forum , Summer 2008
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MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL FORM 2009
***IMPORTANT***
If you attend the fall 2008 AME conference in South Bend, your dues will be automatically
paid for the year 2009. If you do not attend the 2008 conference, you will need to use this
form and mail your dues to renew your membership for 2009.
Your membership includes a subscription to the quarterly The Journal of Moral Education and
to the AME Forum, published twice a year.
To renew your AME membership, please complete the following:
Name _____________________________________________________
Institution __________________________________________________
Business phone _______________________ Home phone ________________________
FAX ________________________________ E-mail _____________________________
Mailing Label:
Line 1 (name)___________________________________________________________
Line 2 _________________________________________________________________
Line 3 _________________________________________________________________
Line 4 _________________________________________________________________
Mark as appropriate:
_____ Regular dues: $75.00 (includes 4 issues of The Journal of Moral Education)
_____ Student dues: $60.00 (includes 4 issues of The Journal of Moral Education)
_____ Donation to the Kohlberg Memorial Fund: $______.00
_____Total enclosed. Make your check (or money order for those outside the U.S. or Canada)
payable in US dollars to Association for Moral Education. Mail this form and your
payment to:
AME c/o Garrett Albert Duncan
Washington University in Saint Louis
One Brookings Drive- CB 1183
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, USA
(mailto:gaduncan@wustl.edu)
Those who prefer to pay by credit card may renew their memberships online at
http://www.amenetwork.org using PayPal.