Hersher Institute for Applied Ethics

One of the Hersher Institute’s core activities is faculty development. Through individual workshops and ongoing working groups, the institute helps faculty incorporate ethical analysis more effectively into their teaching and research.

The institute offers workshops on ethical pedagogy during which faculty develop courses, learning units and classroom activities that foster ethical reflection. Each year, the institute hosts “Ethics Spotlight” discussions for faculty to discuss timely issues that affect students, institutions and the academic profession. Topics have included fairness in college admissions, political policies affecting higher education and ethical implications of artificial intelligence. Community book discussions are offered on topics that include climate change and artificial intelligence.

Since 2020, the institute has annually sponsored faculty working groups. Each group is led by a team of two faculty members who facilitate meetings throughout the academic year. The groups learn together in support of the members’ teaching and research. Current working groups address:

• Ethics in qualitative research
• Artificial intelligence
• Animal ethics and environmental justice
• Business ethics

Each fall, an open call to join groups occurs, but interested faculty can join any time. To learn more about joining a working group or making a proposal to create a new working group, contact the co-directors.

The Hersher Institute helps students learn about ethics by sponsoring their attendance at workshops and conferences. SHU students have participated in the workshops of the Oxford Consortium for Human Rights, most recently the 2023 workshop of Human Rights and New Technologies. In 2025, four students attended the TeXneCON, a conference sponsored by ethics centers at MIT and Northeastern University.

Activities at Sacred Heart University are organized to help students learn about urgent ethical topics and to converse constructively with others on these topics. These opportunities include forums to explore personal perspectives on values, held in collaboration with Sacred Heart University’s Pioneer Journey program, and forums to examine differences over controversial political topics, held in collaboration with the political science & global affairs department.

The institute encourages Sacred Heart students who want to develop their ability to make persuasive ethical arguments to apply for the University’s Ethics Bowl team. The Ethics Bowl team practices by preparing pro and con arguments on timely ethical case studies and then contends against teams from other universities at an annual competition.

There are several academic programs at Sacred Heart that encourage students to integrate intentional, ethical reflection into their academic studies and their personal lives. 

• Minor in Ethics & Society
• Minor in Law & Justice
• Minor in Political Philosophy
• Minor in Human Rights & Social Justice
• Minor or Major in Philosophy, in which one can focus on ethics
• Minor or Major in Theology & Religious Studies, in which one can focus on ethics

The Hersher Institute sponsors lectures and events for the campus community that are open to the local community. Recent events include a screening and panel discussion of the documentary film Join or Die at the Sacred Heart University Community Theatre and a lecture by philosopher Travis Rieder on his book Catastrophe Ethics.

The institute also co-sponsors lectures and events on campus that connect to our mission of ethics education. Sacred Heart faculty who seek our support for co-sponsorship should read the institute’s co-sponsorship policy and then contact the co-directors.