submitted by kaivola@augsburg.edu
It is my pleasure to announce that Mary Elise Lowe, professor of religion, has been named the next Batalden Faculty Scholar in Applied Ethics. Mary’s appointment will take effect with the Spring 2022 semester.
Mary’s focus as Batalden Scholar will be on “embodied ethics” – an expansive category that includes traditional sexual ethics as well as questions of embodiment that are often excluded from traditional Christian ethics. These include inquiries regarding the ways humans relate to other creatures as well as intersectional topics such as disability/ability, race, body image, and human relationships. Mary brings an interest in convocations that feature multiple perspectives and panels of speakers and sees opportunities to engage questions of embodied ethics across the disciplines. She hopes to create a working group for faculty who are interested in integrating embodied ethical reflection into upper-division courses and will seek ways to create new space for ethics conversations among Augsburg staff and within our student services community.
The Batalden Faculty Scholar Program in Applied Ethics is designed to strengthen the infusion of ethics and values into our campus lives, so that ethical discourse and practice is enhanced as a hallmark of Augsburg’s students, faculty, staff and alumni. The Program is funded by an endowment established by Abner Batalden, Class of 1936, and supported today by his family.