Peter Conrad has had a long, distinguished and productive association with SENCER that has led to the development of new courses and learning communities, but moreover to supporting a fundamental change in thinking about and assessing learning on campus.  Peter has always stressed the necessary connection between learning and doing, and between knowing and acting, with special emphasis on ethical decision making.  Peter’s work with SENCER describes a journey from course-based and learning-community based reforms to a larger shift in attitude or “ethos” characterized by greater cross-disciplinary cooperation.

As a SENCER Leadership Fellow, Peter will be devoting considerable attention to the intersection of ethics and science, helping to establish a series of new courses that pursue study at this intersection, and helping colleagues—though consultations and writing projects—who want to use the civic challenges of science and ethics as vehicles for improving instruction and strengthening democratic institutions.

Peter was elected to the inaugural class of Leadership Fellows in July 2008.