David Callahan, Ph.D., public policy activist and scholar of academic integrity, will present “Creating a Culture of Integrity” at 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 15, in Graham Chapel.
His talk is the keynote address of The Center for Academic Integrity’s 18th Annual International Conference (see related story “International integrity conference on campus Oct. 16-18”) and is being co-sponsored by the Assembly Series and the Center for Ethics and Human Values. It is free and open to the public.
In his 2006 book, “The Moral Center: How We Can Reclaim Our Country from Die Hard Extremists, Rogue Corporations, Hollywood Hacks and Pretend Patriots,” Callahan examines seven of our most polarizing conflicts — family, sex, media, crime, work, poverty and patriotism — and presents unexpected solutions that lay out a new road map to the American center.
“The Moral Center” is a follow-up text to Callahan’s 2004 book “The Cheating Culture: Why Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead.”
If we were given the opportunity to cheat on our taxes or to illegally hook up to our neighbor’s cable, Callahan thinks most of us would do so.
In “The Cheating Culture,” Callahan wrote that cheating has risen in the past 20 years as evidenced by corporate scandals, doping by professional athletes and plagiarizing. He puts the blame on the ruthlessly competitive economic climate of the past two decades and claims that the “winning” class has enough money and clout that they can cheat without consequences, while the “anxious” class believes that cheating is the only way to succeed in a winner-take-all world.
Callahan is a co-founder of Demos, a public policy center based in New York. It is a multi-issue national organization that combines research, policy development and advocacy to influence public debates and catalyze change. Callahan serves as Demos’ international program director and senior fellow.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College and a doctorate in politics from Princeton University.
A series of free campus events precedes the lecture, including panel discussions on the state of integrity at WUSTL (7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, in the Danforth University Center, Room 276); intellectual property (5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, in the Danforth University Center, Room 276); and why employers and graduate schools look at integrity, not perfection (7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, in Umrath Hall Lounge).
For more information, visit academicintegrityweek.wustl.edu.