Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Celebrates 20 Years

Business Wire, May 10, 2007

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- For 20 years the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University has brought local and world leaders in business, politics, education, and health care to campus to examine and discuss key ethical issues. Students, faculty, and community members have benefited from these programs and have gone on to share their experience with others.

The Center is named for Mike Markkula, co-founder of Apple Inc. In 1986, Mike and Linda Markkula's daughter was a freshman at Santa Clara; the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences discussed plans for an ethics center on campus that would enhance the role of ethics in the choices made by individuals and society. Markkula had been concerned for some time that Silicon Valley was developing a generation of "ethical agnostics" and offered to get involved in the University's planned ethics center.

With a seed grant from the couple, the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics was launched later that year. Markkula served as the first chair of the Center's advisory board.

Today the Ethics Center has become a nationally renowned resource for issues regarding business ethics, biotechnology and health-care ethics, character education, global ethics, government ethics, technology ethics, and media ethics. Scholars at the Center are frequently called upon by local and national media to comment on current events and ethical issues. The Center also offers a number of campus programs and summer institutes, or "camps," for politicians and teachers.

"In two decades, Santa Clara's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics has grown into one of the world's leading voices on ethics. Silicon Valley, starting with Mike and Linda Markkula, has rallied to support the exploration of the most important ethical questions of the day," said Kirk Hanson, executive director of the Ethics Center. "Santa Clara University, benefiting from its Jesuit tradition of education that enriches the whole person, has been able to address the thorniest ethical questions facing business, health care, schools, government, and other institutions. The Ethics Center is a resource for Silicon Valley, but also for the world."

About the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics

The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University is one of the pre-eminent centers for research and dialogue on ethical issues in critical areas of American life. The Center works with faculty, staff, students, community leaders, and the public to address ethical issues more effectively in teaching, research, and action.

About Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California's Silicon Valley, offers its 8,377 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus master's and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master's universities, California's oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.