UNLV professor Craig Walton will head to Germany on a Fulbright Fellowship early next year to teach philosophy and ethics at a university located in what once was East Germany.
Walton not only will teach at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, but also will work with faculty members and administrators to help them rebuild the university's library, curriculum, and programs, all of which need to be brought up to date.
"During the more than 40 years that the country was under communist rule, the university fell behind its Western peers. Now the university community there is eager to have Friedrich Schiller regain its former status as a great university. I'm honored to have been selected to help them achieve that goal," Walton said.
The director of UNLV's ethics and policy studies program, Walton was one of only about 2,000 people in the United States chosen to receive the prestigious Fulbright Fellowship for the 2000-01 academic year. Recipients are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated unusual leadership potential in their fields.
Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by then-U.S. Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the purpose of the program is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the rest of the world.
Walton, who will be assigned to the German university's Institute for Philosophy, will teach courses in American philosophy, health care ethics, and business and professional ethics. The latter two will be taught in German. He also will work with community leaders in Jena in the areas of health care/bioethics, business ethics, and professional ethics.
Among the businesses in the region that have expressed interest in working with Walton is the worldwide company Carl Zeiss Optics.
Walton plans to leave for Germany in early March. He will teach during the university's "summer" term, which runs from March 15 to July 15. Friedrich Schiller was founded in 1537.
Walton, who is on sabbatical this year, has been a professor at UNLV since 1972. He worked entirely in the philosophy department until 1987 and since then has worked increasingly in ethics and policy studies, which is located within the College of Liberal Arts and offers an interdisciplinary master of arts degree.
For additional information, call Walton at 895-4029 or E-mail him at cwalton@nevada.edu.
