The Fresno State Ethics Center will kick off its fall 2020 series with the annual Celebration of Ethics Leadership Awards ceremony hosted by CBS47 morning news anchor Megan Rupe. The program will air from 7 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, on CBS47 (KGPE-TV) and stream live on Facebook.
The ceremony features Nikiko Masumoto, an organic farmer, memory keeper and artist. Masumoto is a fourth-generation Japanese American who farms the same land her great-grandparents worked. The Masumoto Family Farm grows organic nectarines, apricots, peaches and grapes for raisins.
She co-founded the Yonsei Memory Project, which seeks to archive Japanese American history through arts, storytelling, memory-mapping and intergenerational dialogue. She is the co-author of “The Perfect Peach: Recipes and Stories from the Masumoto Family Farm” and “Changing Season: A Father, A Daughter, A Family Farm.”
Celebration of Ethics Leadership Awards ceremony is presented through an alliance between the Fresno State Ethics Center, Lyles Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Better Business Bureau Serving Central California and Inland Empire Counties. The event is sponsored by United Health Centers, CalViva Health, Fresno Chamber of Commerce, Hedricks Chevrolet, Leon S. Peters Foundation, Johanson Transportation Service, Murphy Bank, Quality Home Services, California Health Sciences University, Core Spaces +Design, Valley Air Conditioning and Repair, Inc. and Manco Abbott.
The fall 2020 Ethics Center lineup also includes:
- Democracy Discussion with student leaders Elizabeth Rocha Zuniga and Hisham Qutob — 4 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 15, on Zoom.
- Constitution Day Discussion with Brandi Orth, Fresno County clerk and Lisa Bryant, professor of political science at Fresno State — 11 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 17, on Zoom.
- Human Rights Day — Thursday, Dec. 10, details to be announced.
To supplement their live events, the Ethic Center is creating short “Ethics Conversations” on its YouTube page.
“The Ethics Center is going to make the transition to virtual reality by transforming our lecture series into a series of conversations to be posted on YouTube. This will make scholarly reflection on ethics and ethical issues accessible to all students and to the world,” Dr. Andrew Fiala, professor of philosophy and director of the Ethics Center said.
Conversations include:
- “Gandhi, Race, and the Gandhi Statue at Fresno State” by Dr. Veena Howard, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Fresno State
- “Hiroshima at 75 and A Tree Planting for Peace” by Dr. Yoshiko Takahashi, Fresno State College of Social Sciences interim associate dean
- “Public Art and Monuments in the Black Lives Matter” by Dr. Cindy Urruta, Center for the Creativity and the Arts director
- “Civil Unrest and Structural Violence” by Dr. José-Antionio Orosco, Professor of Philosophy at Oregon State University, which will be posted soon.
More ethics conversations will be posted over the course of the fall semester.
The Ethics Center supports ethics education across the curriculum, including projects in professional ethics, character education and civic education. They also support research on contemporary social issues, ethics pedagogy and ethical leadership. The center seeks to understand and promote ethics within communities.
