Would Confucius Have Cut The Education Budget?

As Alaska's legislature is busy cutting the state education budget and trying to use what public money is left to give to private schools through vouchers, it might be a good time to get a bigger perspective on this.  The University of Alaska Anchorage Philosophy Department with an assist from the campus Confucius Institute is putting on a conference titled "Living Ethically in the Global World." 

The conference is pretty wide ranging and open to the public.  On the first night, there will be a community panel at East High School.   This was planned before the Governor, in his Orwellian way, declared this the "Year of Education."  I'm not sure the question in the title will be answered, but the recipient of the 2013 Confucian Prize will be on the East High panel.  So you can ask him if he doesn't address the issue in the panel.

“The Priorities and Ethics of Educating” Thursday, March 27, 2014 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm Community Panel at East High School Auditorium Panel: Andy Josephson, UAA Graduate and Alaska State Representative (It appears that Rep. Josephson's legislative duties will keep him in Juneau.) Roger Ames, 2013 Confucian Prize Recipient; Maria Williams, Director of Alaska Native Studies at UAA; Ed McLain, UAA College of Education Respondent: Francisco Miranda, UAA Department of Languages

This is actually both the Ninth Annual UAA Undergraduate Philosophy Conference and the UAA Ethics Center's Inaugural Convocation.

Here are some of the paper titles I pulled out of the program:

“Drawing from the Same Well:  Eastern Thought in Christian Ethics” “Yup’ik Culture is also Confucian” “Role Ethics in the Yijing” “Human Rights and Daoism: An Alternative Chinese Perspective” "Confucian Role Ethics for Women: A Response to Roger T. Ames’ Vocabulary” “The Impossible Junzi and Global Ethics” “Eastern Tones:  What Can Contemporary Acoustics Learn from Yin-Yang?” “Taking Responsibility: Toward a Sixth Confucian Relationship (with Notes from my Life as a Dean in China)” “Confucian Revivalism and Its Role in Chinese Society and Education”

You can find the exact times and locations for each of these in the program embedded below.

And here are the Universities that will be represented (in addition to UAA):

Prospect College and Taigu College (Chongqin and Shanxi Province, PRC) Renmin University (Beijing, PRC) Northeast Normal University Belmont University (Nashville, Tennessee) University of California Santa Cruz Loyola Marymount University University of San Diego (California) Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Yongin, Korea) University of Wales (Great Britain) University of Hawai’i at Mānoa Central Washington University University of San Diego (California) Adrian College

I'd note that the UAA  Department of Public Administration has had a long going relationship with the public administration program at Renmin (People's) University in Beijing and I taught there in 2004. 

I checked and all the panels are open to the public at no charge. Fortunately, we'll be back in Anchorage.   Here's the full program:

Living Ethically in the Global World

And I'd urge people to get off the internet merry-go-round and take a few moments to think about the title of this conference: Acting Ethically in a Global World. What are some of the topics you would explore under that heading? Talk about it over dinner with your parents.