Past Projects and Programs

people posing with their arms around each other

Deis Impact organizers, student organizing team (the Deis Impacters), and keynote speakers Kweku Mandela-Amuah and Ndaba Mandela, with past keynote speakers Eliza Dushku and Judy Dushku among other guests.

Following is a list of projects and programs created by the Ethics Center that have either been retired or migrated to other areas of the university.

Migrated Programs

A festival of events designed to empower students, academic departments, clubs, faculty, staff and organizations to sponsor programming opportunities connected to important social justice themes. The program now resides in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

A practical, skills-based graduate program that prepares students to become responsible, peacebuilding practitioners in conflict areas around the world. The 16-month program is built around three key pillars: understanding the problems of conflict, developing the process for conflict intervention and supporting people and communities through conflict-resolution skills. The program now resides in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management.

Retired Programs

This archive of 30 interview transcripts serves as an educational resource that examines the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda from a unique and personal perspective. It contributes to our knowledge about the role that international criminal justice can play in today's world as well as the challenges that it faces.

2001

A program for Brandeis students and recent alumni — most of whom were Arab and Jewish students from Israel and Jordan who were attending Brandeis on Slifka coexistence scholarships — to explore pressing concerns in the Middle East and devise plans to work toward peace and coexistence. Funded by Morton H. Meyerson Family Tzedakah Funds.

2002-2018

This unique program provided members of the international judiciary with the opportunity to meet and discuss critical issues concerning the theory and practice of international justice.

2003-2004

A program that brought together scholars and practitioners from around the globe to develop projects and publications related to the ethical dimensions of their work.

2006-2013

The Brandeis Judicial Colloquia series fostered an exchange of experience and expertise between judges in national judiciaries and those on international courts, with the aim of establishing an ongoing dialogue on fundamental issues that affect them both.

Programs on values and ethics for judges and other professional groups, using literature as the basis of discussion.

2000-2004

A program in cooperation with MASAR (Jordan), Givat Haviva (Israel) and the Palestinian House of Friendship (Palestinian National Authority) to build capacity within a cohort of exemplary youth leaders, enabling them to design and implement cross-border community research projects. Funded through a grant from the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State.

Coexistence International

Based within the Slifka Program in Intercommunal Coexistence, the Coexistence International program facilitated connections and learning between the coexistence field and related fields such as sustainable development, human rights, democracy and art.

2007-2012

Brought respected practitioners to campus for several days to examine the ethical challenges and dilemmas in their fields of expertise. Distinguished practitioners were in residence at Brandeis from three to five days to offer public events, visit classes and engage students interested in pursuing a career in their field.

2011-2015

The Ethics Center Leadership Council (ECLC) was composed of two to six undergraduate students per semester who worked together and independently to build engagement with and awareness of the Center’s resources; reach out to students, faculty and staff at Brandeis and to people at other schools and organizations; and promote and enhance interactive conversations about topics concerning social justice on campus through various means.

2001

A program that linked Brandeis students and faculty with partners in Haifa; Grenada; and Chelsea, Massachusetts, to explore family, community and the cultural, aesthetic, historical and intellectual inheritances of youth as sources of learning. Funded by the Coca-Cola Foundation, with additional support from Morton Meyerson, the Meyerson Family Tzedakah Funds and the Alan B. Slifka Foundation.

2003-2005

The series, a collaboration of the Ethics Center, Spheres of Exchange and the Framingham State College Center for Global Education, brought together people who work with immigrants and refugees in the Boston area with the aim of building a network of professionals who can advise and consult one another in this critical and growing field.

A Brandeis-based project designed to bring focus and a set of new ideas to the debate about the future of public education in Massachusetts and in the nation.

1998-2017

Founded as the Ethics Center Student Fellowship Program and renamed in 2009 to honor the work of former JFK speechwriter Theodore "Ted" Sorensen, the Sorenson Fellowship Program provided funding for Brandeis sophomores and juniors to participate in a summerlong, internationally focused internship with an organization of their choice anywhere in the world.

A multimedia project that documented the 40-year practice of cultural work of the extraordinary educator, activist and cultural work Jane Wilburn Sapp.