Inamori Center program to promote global discussion on military ethics

Julia Bianco, Staff Reporter

On Feb. 25, Case Western Reserve University will be holding its first Global Dialogue Café, a joint project between Cisco Systems, CWRU’s Division of Information Technology Services (ITS) and the Laura and Alvin Siegal Lifelong Learning Program, which will bring together individuals from across the globe.

The new program is designed to be completely interactive. It will facilitate video conferencing between participants in multiple countries, and it aims to move past the traditional online classroom setting that underpins Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) and podcasts. As a result, it strives to create an interactive environment that will result in global discussion-based learning.

ITS and Cisco Systems provided a high-definition videoconferencing network to be used for CWRU’s portion of the conference, which will be open to all CWRU students, faculty and staff, as well as the general public.
Shannon E. French, director of the Inamori Center for Ethics and Excellence, will run the first session, which will focus on military ethics in the age of “virtual” war. The first session will be connected with other sessions in Lisbon, Portugal; London, United Kingdom; and Paris, France.

The program will continue through three additional sessions slated to occur in upcoming months. The March session will focus on global corporate ethics in China, while the April session will focus on end-of-life issues and the ethics of euthanasia. The last session, which has yet to be scheduled, will focus on ethical challenges in the art world.