Reflections Magazine Issue #57 - Spring 2002 | Page 4

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Ethics lecture will be an annual event

Kennedy Cuomo urges students to fight injustice
ne person CAN make a difference,”
human rights activist Kerry Kennedy Cuomo said Feb. 12 in the
inaugural lecture of the Chiodini-Fontana
Endowed Lecture Series on Ethics.
Kennedy Cuomo encouraged the audience
of students, faculty, Adrian Dominicans, and
area residents gathered in Francoeur Theater
to “muster your anger when you see injustice. We must speak out when we see injustice in our world.”
“Even if you do nothing else but voice your
condemnation of injustice, you will have a
ripple effect.”
Kennedy Cuomo’s compelling and passionate presentation set a high standard for future
speakers in the ethics lecture series, made
possible through The Campaign for Siena
Heights University.
The new series—Siena’s first endowed lectureship—was established with generous support from Siena friend Catherine
Reuther and her family.
The program will bring acclaimed
speakers to campus every year to
reflect on matters of moral significance that touch the many dimensions of today’s society. The lecture series is intended to explore
theoretical issues in ethics, current
issues of moral importance, and
the nature and meaning of Catholic identity.

The ethics program is intended to reach students at all Siena Heights locations; future
speakers will likely travel to other SHU sites.
For the inaugural lecture, a contingent of students from the Lake Michigan Center traveled to campus from Benton Harbor. They
explored the Siena facilities and ate in Benincasa Dining Hall prior to the lecture.
“This was a great opportunity for students
from our off-campus centers to feel part of
the University—and it was a wonderful demonstration of our institutional values,” said
Deb Carter, dean of The College for Professional Studies.
Kennedy Cuomo spoke eloquently about the
problem of violence against women. She
also noted some of the positive changes that
have occurred in the world since she first
became involved in human rights, such as
the abolition of apartheid in South Africa and
the end of sexual slavery in Ghana. These
changes “came about because people with

Students from SHU at LMC visited campus for the ethics lecture.

few resources beyond their own determination fought for human rights,” she said.
She challenged listeners to “have the courage
to commit yourself to a cause greater than
yourself.”
The daughter of the late Robert F. -