Tonight we're here in Abington in southwest
Virginia at the Martha Washington Inn and
Spa, a beautiful, historic setting for a great
conversation.
One of the key themes we talked about tonight
was citizenship and ethics.
And we particularly focused on the new initiative
we have, what used to be called our QEP, Quality
Enhancement Plan, the Madison Collaborative
Ethical Reasoning in Action, a major new initiative
for the University that will be part of the
curriculum across all the disciplines as we
go forward.
I think the crowd here was encouraged by the
fact that ethics and ethical decision-making
was going to be a key part of the educational
process for us going forward and that it would
focus not just on the individual and the individual's
rights in society but also on our collective
responsibilities to each other the idea of
service to other people of relationships with
the community around you.
There was a real sense, I think, that we need
to help people focus on the common good and
that higher education has a critical role
to play in that regard so it seemed to me
that the crowd tonight was very enthusiastic
about that initiative and interested in how,
perhaps, they might be able to help us as
we go forward, getting alumni and parents
and other constituencies involved.
