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The University's Center for Bioethics was established in 1985 to advance and disseminate knowledge concerning ethical issues in health care and the life sciences. The Center carries out this mission by conducting original interdisciplinary research, offering educational programs and courses, fostering public discussion and debate through community service activities, and assisting in the formulation of public policy.
The Center supports and encourages education in bioethics for University students, faculty, and staff; professionals in health care and related fields; and interested members of the general public. Its staff offers courses and lectures in a large number of departments and professional schools of the University. By maintaining a close relationship with other departments and schools on the University campus, the Center is able to address interdisciplinary issues of health care and life science public policy.
The Center offers a minor in bioethics for students enrolled in graduate degree programs. Clinical internships are arranged on an individual basis.
The Center for Cognitive Sciences facilitates multidisciplinary interactions in the domain of cognitive science. Its members share an interest in perception, learning, information processing, neuroscience, and cognition.
Presently, the Center draws faculty and students from a variety of different departments, including child development, communication disorders, computer science, educational psychology, kinesiology, linguistics, management science, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology.
The Center provides many opportunities for interaction and intellectual exchange; it offers a minor in cognitive science for graduate students in M.A., M.S., and Ph.D. programs; and it continues to be one of the premier behavioral and cognitive science research facilities in the nation.
The Charles Babbage Institute for the History of Information Processing is a research institute dedicated to promoting the study of the history of information processing, bringing historical perspective to the study of its impact on society, and fostering the development of a network of historical archives and repositories.
The Institute pursues a historical research program focusing on topics from the period since 1940. These include the growth of the computer industry, the development of scientific computing, and the role of government in computing. Also an archival center, the Institute has a public reading room containing corporate reports, personal papers, technical reports, periodicals, monographs, and unpublished papers; it serves as a clearinghouse for information about the location and contents of historical material and persons interested in the history of information processing.
CSDS, established in 1987, is a degree-granting graduate program in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature. Its teaching staff of 17 faculty come from this and other units, including architecture, English, Geography, German, History, political science, Spanish, and Women's Studies.
The objective of the program is an improved understanding of the complex interrelation of ideas, values, social configurations, and material realities. The program's interdisciplinary curriculum focuses attention on discourse of various types (music, film, myth, ritual, architecture, landscape, painting, sculpture, literature, etc.) in elite, popular, folk, and mass culture as a site and an instrument of contestation and negotiation among social forces.
The curriculum emphasizes small seminars, generally centered around current research interests of the faculty.
The MacArthur Program approaches international studies from an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspective. Through workshops and seminars the Program promotes study and research on issues of globalization, society and the ecosphere, war and institutions of violence, and identity and social power. The Program seeks to investigate how these issues intersect with justice and human rights, as well as social and economic sustainability.
Each year, twelve "MacArthur Scholars" are awarded fellowships for up to four years of study. Inclusion in the program means scholars have access to interdisciplinary workshops and seminars lead by scholars, policy makers, and activists/advocates from around the world. Interdisciplinary workshops and seminars designed especially for MacArthur Scholars provide a forum for faculty to share their research and experience with students. Students likewise receive guidance and encouragement in their own research and interests.
Some major themes recently addressed within the Program include urbanization and sustainability; regional destabilization and low-intensity conflict worldwide; reform in socialist countries; democracy and development; and transnational social networks and constructions of race in international contexts. At the same time, coursework introduces students to issues in and methodologies of research and fieldwork. Students may take courses for academic credit and apply them toward a minor in development studies and social change.
Founded by Herbert Feigl in 1953, the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science was the world's first center devoted exclusively to promoting the philosophy of science. The Center's current mission is to be an international, national, and local center of interdisciplinary research and training in the philosophy of science and empirical studies of science.
The Center has served the international and national communities as the setting for workshops leading to many of the most important publications in the philosophy of science, many of which have been published in the Center's distinguished series Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. The Center also provides a setting for visitors to conduct research and share ideas. It has hosted visitors ranging from Karl Popper to Paul Feyerabend, from Bas Van Fraassent to Elliott Sober. Visitors come for sabbaticals and postdoctoral fellowships, and to participate in Center workshops, present talks, and run guest seminars.
Of special importance to graduate students is the Studies of Science and Technology Colloquium, jointly sponsored by the Center and the Program in History of Science and Technology. The colloquium includes approximately 30 speakers a year including philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science.
During their visits, these scholars meet informally with groups of graduate students. When Ph.D. students specializing in the philosophy of science gain candidacy, they are invited to become Student Fellows of the Center. Student Fellows attend Center discussion meetings, which are held biweekly, and guest seminars with visiting speakers.
The Center has been and continues to be one of the most exciting places in the world to work in the philosophy of science as a member, resident fellow, graduate student fellow, visiting scholar, or visiting speaker.
Minnesota's Program in History of Science and Technology (HST) is among the largest and best such programs in the world. It offers both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees, and a minor for students enrolled in other degree programs. Each faculty member has a joint appointment with a science or engineering department, ensuring close association with related fields. The program offers opportunities for advanced research and study in four broad areas: the history of the physical sciences, the history of technology, the history of biology, and the history of scientific institutions.
HST hosts over two-dozen colloquium speakers each year. These speakers are part of the Studies of Science and Technology colloquium, which HST and the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science jointly sponsor.
The Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law is located in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Dedicated to media freedom and fairness, the Center emphasizes ethical and legal analyses as a means of understanding the role of the media in a democratic society.
Through lectures, conferences, forums, and its publications, the Center fosters discussion and debate on major issues in media ethics and law. Publications include law and ethics bibliographies, research reports, and the Silha lecture series.
In 1992 the University of Minnesota began offering a new graduate minor under the title Studies of Science and Technology for students pursuing the M.A., M.S., or Ph.D. degree. The minor is designed for those students from any major field who have interests in the history, philosophy, and social studies of science and technology.
SST provides introductory core courses in historiography and philosophy of science, followed by team-taught research seminars and other elective courses in four main research areas: models, theories, and reality; biological and biomedical science; physical science; and science, technology, and society. Topics of the seminars vary from year to year, depending on faculty and student interest. Recent and projected topics are theory and experiment in early modern science, the role of models in science and technology, issues of gender and science, the history and philosophy of biology, and science and technology policy.
The SST minor co-sponsors a weekly colloquium with the Minnesota Center for Philosophy of Science and the Program in History of Science and Technology. This weekly colloquium is the central meeting place for a community of roughly fifty faculty and graduate students sharing an interest in the study of science as an intellectual and cultural institution.
