The 6th in a series of lecture panels on nanotechnology will take place at nearby Northwestern University on January 12 at 5:30PM-7:30PM. See the website for more details (http://www.nsec.northwestern.edu/townhalls.htm). The event is completely free, but advance registration is required.
The National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference (NUBC) will be held on March 26-27, 2010 at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. Hosted last year by Harvard, the NUBC is the seminal conference organized by and for the next generation of bioethicists, philosophers, theologians, scientists, doctors, and policy-makers. For more information, visit http://www.nubc2010.org/index.html.
The Loyola bioethics bowl team will also be competing this year at the Bioethics Bowl that will happen during the undergraduate conference. For information on the Loyola Bioethics bowl team, please talk to Andy Kondrat or Courtney Stewart.
This past Spring semester the department underwent a hiring search for a philosophy professor with interests and skills in the field of bioethics, and particularly in 
the philosophy of biology and the area of bioetechnology. After a series of interviews and colloquium with the department in January, a decision was made to hire Dr. Gillian Crozier, who will be joining us following a post-doctoral fellowship program at Dalhousie University in Canada.
Dr. Crozier will be joining the Loyola Philosophy department in the Fall term, when she will begin by teaching “Health Care Ethics” and “Topics in Ethics: Bioetechnology and Ethics,” both undergraduate courses. Although unknown at this point what courses she will teach in the future, Dr. Crozier is interested in teaching in the philosophy of science/biology, as well as on other topics at the intersection of the life sciences, cultural/technological change, and social justice.
Recently, Dr. Crozier has been researching and writing on reproductive travel — where patients go abroad for IVF, gametes, surrogacy, etc. Additionally she has also been researching and writing on the future of stem cell research and its implications for social justice. Future research will continue to build on current themes in her research as she works on the topic of social justice and international trade in medical services/goods, including reproductive medicine. Dr. Crozier will also continue her philosophy of biology research on cultural evolution, which was the topic of her PhD dissertation that she completed at the University of Western Ontario.
A new web portal called Ethics Share has launched. Check it out at EthicShare.
“EthicShare is a research and collaboration website designed to help you do research, share, collaborate, and participate in the field of ethics. You will find a comprehensive collection of ethics materials including research materials, group discussions, current news articles, and upcoming events. EthicShare automatically adds new research materials regularly but if you notice that something is missing you can help improve EthicShare by sharing citations, conference announcements and calls for papers as well as suggestions you think might improve EthicShare.”
Our next bioethics discussion group will be held on April 17th at 2:30 PM, somewhere in the Crown Center (more details pending). The presenter for this discussion will be an undergraduate student, Andrew Sova.
On Monday, April 13th, Tod Chambers will be giving a lecture entitled “Taking Bioethics Personally.” The lecture will begin at 4PM in the Bremmer Lounge of Centennial Forum on Loyola’s Lake Shore Campus.
Professor Chambers is the Director of the Program in Medical Humanities and Bioethics at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He is also a Past-President of the American Society for Bio9ethics and Humanities. Professor Chambers is a well-known and frequent critic of the “profession” of bioethics to be very uncritical of its own biases, prejudices, and philosophical presumptions. In tis place, he argues for a much more self-aware and self-critical bioethics.
The Bioethics Discussion Group will meet on Friday, March 20, at 2:30PM in Crown Center, room 434. Martha Holstein will introduce several cases for discussion amidst the group. The cases relate to the concept of “self-neglect” among the elderly. All are welcome.Please check out these attached documents, as they will be the topic of discussion (Particularly the slide presentation).
The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago is organizing a conference on various health care ethics issues (naprotechnology, in vitro fertilization, and human dignity). The conference will be held at the Marriot at O’Hare in Chicago on March 28, 7:30AM-3:30PM. See this attached flyer for more information and registration, Catholic Bioethics Conference Flyer.
This year the spring meeting of ASBH will be held at Northwestern University downtown at the Feinberg Medical School, April 23-25. The theme of the conference is “Books to Bedside: Translational Work in the Medical Humanities.” For a more detailed description and information regarding registration, please visit the conference website. REGISTRATION IS FREE FOR STUDENTS IF REGISTERED BEFORE APRIL 10.
On Monday March 9th at 3:30PM in the Information Commons, on the 4th floor, Dr. Hille Haker, the candidate for the Richard A. McCormick Chair, will be presenting a paper in colloquium. The title of her paper is “Narrative Ethics in Health Care Chaplaincy.” For a copy of her paper, haker paper.pdf