Transitions at the MSU Center for
Ethics & Humanities in the Life Humanities


A Quarter Century’s Worth of Furniture

by Howard Brody

What is it like leaving the place that has been my home for the past quarter century? I grew up here, as a professional and in other ways. New vistas and new challenges are exciting, but it is very difficult to leave behind my housemates who have been with me this for so long.

One of the colleagues in the new home I am going to paid me a nice compliment. He had last spent time with me up close about 14 years ago. He had thought that back then I showed a number of good qualities, but he was also pleased to see that today some of the rough edges had been rubbed off. If he’s right, I have no doubt that my housemates helped a lot with the sandpaper.

As much as I will miss my housemates, they have made me a very handsome offer. They are going to let me take some of the furniture from the old place with me. In my new home, I’ll be able to look fondly at these furnishings and remember my former associates all the more clearly.

So what do I plan to take with me?

First off, there is competence and professional responsibility. My housemates are teachers down to the marrow of their bones. They care deeply that those who come into contact with us take away something of value. I have never done teaching with any of them when I have not taken away some new tips on how to become a better teacher.

Next, I had thought of taking honesty. When I was starting to think about leaving, I took the first opportunity to talk with all my housemates about my thoughts, plans, and concerns. It would have been unfathomable to treat them any other way. Any hesitation or prevarication on my part would have been a churlish recompense for the way that they have treated me for so many years.

I definitely want to take compassion. This past year, which caused me to consider leaving the place that had been my home for so long, was in some ways very painful. At every step, I felt the support of my housemates. When one of our beloved housemates died recently, the sense of loss and the concern for her family were palpable as one walked though the rooms of our house. I hope to live up to this standard of compassion in how I treat all my new colleagues in my new place.

Respect for others is another thing I want to bring with me. In our house, we have taken many actions and made many decisions. I cannot recall when, if ever, we did anything by vote. We have talked and discussed and listened, and always have found ways to agree on what was best. Again, I hope to be able to rise to that standard in how I treat my new colleagues.

Finally, there is social responsibility. My housemates have always been concerned for those who are ignored by our society, those whose voices have not been heard. They have taught me that this thing we call bioethics and humanities in health care is not worth calling as such if it does not welcome the voices that have not been heard and adopt the concerns that have not been addressed.

I hope that some of our students in the College of Human Medicine read what I have written here. They will, I trust, recognize my furniture inventory. In the College, we call this list the virtues of professionalism. We hope that they will strive toward these virtues in how they treat their patients.

I hope that my faculty colleagues in other

departments are as fortunate as I have been. I hope you can say that you treat each other the same way that my housemates have treated me—that as faculty, we model for ourselves and our colleagues, as well as for our students, this list of virtues. (If not, I invite you to imagine how things could change.)

There is one immensely rewarding thing about my furniture inventory. I can take as much of this furniture with me as I can possibly haul away, and plenty will still remain in the house that I am leaving.

Transitions

By Judy Andre

Unlike Howard Brody, I’m not leaving home. I’m just moving across the hall. Like him, I appreciate the people with whom I work, and their company—professional and personal—is one reason I’m staying, working part-time for a few years.

My new office is smaller, befitting my reduced commitments. I have left some tasks behind in order to focus on others. What keeps me here—besides the company of my colleagues and the state of my bank account—is the desire to work with the focus that only sabbaticals have provided me before. For academics, as for artists and scientists, it is a luxury and a joy to be able to think solely about one’s work. Sometimes those hours are undistracted; but even distractions are often fruitful, because my energies are centered on one major project. Whatever is at the forefront of my mind, at the back, ideas are germinating and bearing fruit—understanding grows even, or even especially, when I am not aware of it. Contemporary academic life is too full of competing agendas, urgent and time consuming, to allow this kind of immersion.

I’m looking, then, to simplify my life. In the process of moving office I pruned my collection of books—a pruning that kept getting deeper; the more I decided to give away, the more I decided I could live without. (So much is available electronically now, and the MSU library is large and accommodating; the decisions were almost painless.) I found that what I wanted to keep fell into three categories: books that I loved, classics, and books I’ll be using soon. In the end I cut my collection in half. May those I gave away find loving homes. It was a particular joy to see graduate students take away armfuls of books. To one student I remarked apologetically that the books were pretty old; she grinned and said “That’s what makes them great.” Another day an anthropology student cradled a translation of Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles. Her father had been talking about it only the week before. My own copy, now hers, had been discarded thirty years ago by Mercy College of Detroit (long since merged with the University of Detroit). The electronic worldwide web is a marvel, but books also create webs, of a different kind, across years and owners. I am glad to joined to so many.

So much for what I’m leaving behind. What I’m taking up is a new project tentatively called “Cosmopolitan Virtue: On Becoming Citizens of the World.” Nice title, one might say, but what does it mean? Roughly speaking, a virtue is a quality of character that protects some aspect of a good life, for oneself or for others. Some virtues are probably universal: it is hard to imagine a way of life that does not need courage. Others are more specific; thrift is not a virtue unless there is scarcity. As societies change, so do the virtues they require. Our world is manifestly changing; it grows more interconnected by the day. The interesting question is what qualities of character are particularly necessary in the global village. Since health is a precondition for much of what makes life good, my years in medical ethics will not be wasted. But my focus will be larger, including not only health care workers but tourists, policy makers, consumers, and charities. The project requires considering not only what we owe others, but what we can learn from them. For that reason, I have been writing about a virtue that so far I simply call listening. Respectful attention to others has never been more important, and rarely been quite as hard. (Closely related to these topics is my long term interest in the limits of the market: What should be for sale? More and more is, but this is not necessarily progress.) Writing this book is a major task; projects like this are what a philosopher’s retirement is for.

Back home my plans are typical: clean out the closets, read War and Peace, balance my checkbook, weed the garden, travel. Work on my French. And take more naps.

John Lennon was right, however, in defining life as what happens when you’re making other plans. A year ago a young niece unexpectedly arrived on my doorstep. Sometimes a change of venue is just what a teenager needs, and we’ve had a good year. She will fledge soon, but until then the closets, and Tolstoy, will have to wait.

Whatever happens, I look forward happily to the years ahead. I have much to be grateful for, especially the chance to remain part of MSU.

Saying Good-Bye

Another transition for the Center is the departure of Clayton L. Thomason, JD, M.Div. In July 2006, Clayton began his new job as the Bishop Anderson chair of the department of Religion, Health, and Human Values at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

While sad to leave the Center, Clayton feels that his leaving is a natural outgrowth of the training that the Center offered him. Working at the Center not only helped him articulate what his vision of bioethics is, but it also gave him insight and experience for how to contribute to bioethical professional education across disciplines. Bioethics, according to Clayton, is inherently interdisciplinary. It is this interdisciplinary nature of bioethics that was the biggest challenge for Clayton in working at MSU. Though the interdisciplinary nature of bioethics has its disadvantages, Clayton asserts that it is also a benefit and perhaps even the greatest gift of bioethics.

One of Clayton’s favorite aspects of working at the Center was the engagement in teaching and academic development for all kinds of students at MSU—medical, nursing, veterinarian, graduate, and law. He says the best thing about working at the Center was the collegial atmosphere and the intellectual rigor that his colleagues brought to the work they did together. He is grateful to his colleagues for all that he has learned from them. In particular, he has learned a lot about leadership from the Center, especially from Howard and Tom. The transparency with which they engage faculty in the Center’s mission and work, as well as their natural leadership gifts made the Center a great place to work and a great place for people to learn and grow. Clayton’s new job in a leadership role reflects the success of the Center.

The Center Welcomes Peggy Anderson

The MHR would like to welcome Peggy Anderson, a half-time secretary who joined the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences this past February. She maintains the Center’s website and manages the video and print lending libraries. She also supports the Center’s Brown Bag speaker series and the Fogarty international bioethics training program offered in collaboration with the University of Malawi, College of Medicine.