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 Our Initiatives

Listed below are all the programs and activities in which the Center for Ethics & Social Responsibility is currently involved.  Click on any initiative for more information. Additionally, you can use the “sort by” options in the left column to narrow this list down by either a particular audience or a particular topic.

Ethics & Social Responsibility Scholar: A four-year scholarship available to high school seniors showing exception intellectual promise and demonstrated commitment to service in their communities.

Moral Forum: Annual moral dialogue and debate program focusing on a values-based controversial issue. Culminates in a University-wide tournament each March.

Documenting Justice: A two-semester anthropological documentary filmmaking course for non-film majors, focusing on issues of justice in the state of Alabama.

Documenting Justice: International: Building off of the Documenting Justice course, this  multi-semester course in documentary filmmaking allows students to tell stories of justice from all corners of the globe in conjunction with an existing study abroad program.

Tuscaloosa Pre-K Initiative: A program that engages the city school system administrators and educators, UA faculty, staff, and students to offer the best health and education services possible for academically at-risk children and their families.

SaveFirst: A service learning opportunity that trains college, graduate, and law students to provide free tax preparation services, financial literacy information, and opportunities for savings and investment to low-income individuals, especially targeting those eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Poverty & Civic Engagement: Service learning course that allows students to examine perceptions and policies toward those living in poverty in the US while providing vital vision screenings to children in the immediate region. Coursework focuses on perceptions of those in poverty, race and poverty, socioeconomic issues faced by low-income families, federal and state policies toward working families, and the impact of service learning on individual civic engagement and political socialization. 

Nonprofit Enrichment Team: A multidisciplinary team of students working together to assist new and developing nonprofit agencies for course credit.

Faculty Fellows in Service Learning Program: A one-year fellowship designed to accelerate the work of faculty members who are eager to develop exemplary curricular approaches to education for active and ethical citizenship, social responsibility, and engagement by applying service learning to their courses. 

Applied Ethical Statistics & Mathematics Course: An introductory statistics/mathematics course designed around ethics-based case studies, applying math and statistics to the social, political, and ecological problems in our world through a series of intriguing case studies.

Tuscaloosa Academic Enrichment: A program that provides high-quality academic and cultural learning experiences to at-risk incoming high school freshmen in Tuscaloosa through a collaborative partnership between UA and the city.

Alternative Spring Break: An opportunity for students to travel while providing meaningful community service during Spring Break.

Speak The Truth: Annual justice-based University of Alabama Speech Team performance, hosted by CESR each February.

Teaching Ethics & Social Justice: A three-hour teacher training and staff development workshop for high school teachers.

Minor in Civic Engagement & Leadership: A multidisciplinary minor designed for students in any discipline who are interested in incorporating themes of justice, human rights, and social responsibility into their studies.

Media Justice Fellows: A telecommunication and film partnership enabling talented graduates from Lawson State Community College to continue their education in broadcasting and production at The University of Alabama.

Invisible Children: International campaign against the abduction of children in Uganda forced into child soldiery and sex slavery.

Freshman Forum: The Ethics & Social Responsibility team collaborates with various CESR initiatives as part of a highly selective year-long program for incoming freshmen

Service Learning: An academic course with structured opportunities for students to critically reflect on the ethical dimensions of both their service and the course.

To Whom Much Is Given: September 2007 statewide conference on service learning and poverty co-sponsored by CESR, focused on defining higher education's obligation toward communities of need in Alabama and developing solutions to poverty through service learning and community engagement.