REACH faculty gathering

The Community Ethics Network

The Community Ethics Network (CEN) is a network of over 120 local organizations and leaders in the greater region focused on peer-to-peer discussion, resource sharing, and opportunities. Members include representatives of large and small for-profit enterprises, non-profit organizations, faith-based organizations, City and County governmental agencies, and advocacy groups. CEN members receive our newsletter and information about upcoming listening sessions, events, and workshops. To join the CEN, email us at REACH@Salisbury.edu.

Why Focus on Ethics?

Ethics can mean a lot of different things, but to us it means communicating about the ways in which we understand the public good, and reflectively approaching how we make decisions, set rules, and share information in the course of making those goods a reality. An ethical community embraces transparency, dialogue, and the ability to revise its own practices; to this end, the REACH Initiative is establishing a Community Ethics Network. Establishing this network has been a long-desired goal towards increasing SU’s and Salisbury’s engagement with public ethics in this sense.

One of the biggest barriers to this sort of work is establishing trust and mutual understanding of how we all articulate the public good to ourselves, our team members, and our constituents. We all play different roles, from businesses to non-profits to government and social enterprises. By coming together, we can establish that mutual understanding, pathways to collaboration and mutual aid, identifying and acquiring needed resources, and guaranteeing increased accountability.

With the heightened environment of a COVID pandemic, policing, partisanship and public accountability, there is no time like the present to find new ways of communicating, solving problems, and how best to take responsibility for our community, and for each other.

The REACH Initiative is funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded to Dr. Timothy Stock (Philosophy) and Dr. Michele Schlehofer (Psychology).

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