2000 - 2010 Faulkner University
5345 Atlanta Highway, Montgomery, AL 36109 334.272.5820 or 800.879.9816 Privacy / Legal
Web site Powered by ActiveCampusTM Software by LiquidMatrix
News
Home > News Archive> News Story
Symposium explores good citizenship
What does it mean to be a good citizen? In an era of apparent lawlessness, this issue is foremost on the minds
of many.
To answer this question, Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law and Great Books Honors College teamed up to host a symposium on good citizenship Nov. 1. Attendees were community leaders in the areas of education and public service. Drawing from both ancient and modern resources, namely Plato’s Apology and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, attendees found ways of answering today’s concerns despite the span of years between the texts. The assembly divided into three discussion groups, addressed ideas brought up by the passages, and then reconvened for a debriefing of what other groups learned. Replicas of the settings from which the two authors wrote—jails in Athens, Greece and Birmingham, Ala.—helped guide the groups into the authors’ mindset.
Attendees left the experience with more than just a checklist of what is right and wrong in our society. “We want to explore what it means to be a good citizen,” explained Dr. Robert Woods, one of the event coordinators. “We want to know more than what one shouldn’t do; we want to know what one should do.”
Not only did the symposium help attendees understand better what good citizenship means, it also showed the viability of ancient texts speaking to current problems, presenting modern problem-solvers with wealth of resources. The group looked at how institutions of higher education can promote good citizenship as well.
of many.
To answer this question, Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law and Great Books Honors College teamed up to host a symposium on good citizenship Nov. 1. Attendees were community leaders in the areas of education and public service. Drawing from both ancient and modern resources, namely Plato’s Apology and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, attendees found ways of answering today’s concerns despite the span of years between the texts. The assembly divided into three discussion groups, addressed ideas brought up by the passages, and then reconvened for a debriefing of what other groups learned. Replicas of the settings from which the two authors wrote—jails in Athens, Greece and Birmingham, Ala.—helped guide the groups into the authors’ mindset.
Attendees left the experience with more than just a checklist of what is right and wrong in our society. “We want to explore what it means to be a good citizen,” explained Dr. Robert Woods, one of the event coordinators. “We want to know more than what one shouldn’t do; we want to know what one should do.”
Not only did the symposium help attendees understand better what good citizenship means, it also showed the viability of ancient texts speaking to current problems, presenting modern problem-solvers with wealth of resources. The group looked at how institutions of higher education can promote good citizenship as well.
