Daniel Callahan: There at the Birth of Bioethics
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
One day Daniel Callahan accompanied his friend Paul Desjardins to the dry cleaners. As they were leaving the shop, Desjardins, a World War II veteran working on a doctorate degree in philosophy, turned to Callahan, an 18-year-old student at Yale, and asked, “How do you think I did?” The befuddled Callahan stammered, “What do you mean?” “Well, did I treat the laundry man in the right way?” Desjardins asked.
Callahan had no idea what his friend was talking about. “But the point is it was one of my first experiences with ethics,” Callahan said. “One had to think about how one lived one’s life, even at that trivial level. Of course, Paul Desjardins didn’t believe it was trivial. He thought it told a lot about you as a person in that encounter.” At the time Callahan was attending Yale on a swimming scholarship and philosophy was about the furthest thing from his mind. Read More…
Rev. Tom Doyle: Fighting to Prevent Clergy Sexual Abuse in Catholic Church
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
The Rev. Tom Doyle was on the fast track. Eleven years after ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood he was a canon or church lawyer on the staff of the Vatican embassy in Washington, D.C. His future looked exceedingly bright.
But in 1984 his career took a swerve he didn’t see coming. The idealistic Doyle was about to receive a crash course in radical evil, both individual and institutional. Read More…
Emily Warner: First Female Commercial Airline Pilot and Captain
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
Some books pass the time, others change your life. Emily Warner was 16 years old when she read Wind, Sand and Star by the French author and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupery. “It lit a candle,” she said, “It got me thinking about flight.”
But in late 1950s when Warner thought of flying careers, she had only one option — a stewardess. Returning on a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver, her hometown, she glimpsed another alternative. Read More…
Jack Coleman: Former College President, Roughneck, Dishwasher, Ditch Digger, Trash Collector, Pigpen Cleaner, and Prison Guard
Friday, June 26th, 2009
Jack Coleman lugged the foul-smelling garbage bin from the curb and tipped it over into the rear of the sanitation truck. Returning it to the curb, he noticed an elderly woman staring at him. Actually, she was scowling. Unable to contain herself further, she blurted out, “Do you think you’ll ever amount to anything?”
Saying such a thing to Jack Coleman, then in his early 50s, was the height or the depth — take your pick — of a delicious irony. At the time Coleman was on a sabbatical from Haverford College, a private, liberal arts college, just outside of Philadelphia. No, he wasn’t a professor or even the dean; he was the president. An economist and labor relations specialist by training, he was also the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in Philadelphia. Read More…
Robert Ballard, Ph.D.: Building a Legacy of Discovery with Today’s Students
Monday, June 15th, 2009
Robert Ballard has always been a hunter, an explorer, a finder of lost things. Growing up in San Diego, he was enchanted by stories of explorers and their adventures.
One was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. As a 10-year-old Ballard dreamed of being on board Captain Nemo’s submarine, Nautilus, and peering through its giant window at the watery underworld.
“I told my parents I wanted to be Captain Nemo,” he said. “It was a silly dream, but they didn’t laugh. My parents were always supporting my dreams and that was critical. I’m a believer in dreams.” Read More…