City Ethics was in its infancy stage in the early 2000's when I got a letter in the mail. (Yes, an actual handwritten letter.) "Do you need any help with research?" asked Rob. "Yes", was the immediate answer and the beginning of a wonderful partnership and friendship with Rob. His first project was the compilation of municipal ethics codes with the view towards synthesizing them into a Model Code. Not too many people could confront doing such an enormous project, but...
Larry Lessig's opening talk for the conference on Institutional Corruption (May 1, 2015) is now up on YouTube: Opening Discussion: Lessig/Thompson
I was there at the conference and it was a real treat to see Dennis Thompson, founder of the Harvard Ethics Center, and Larry Lessig discuss corruption and potential solutions. Larry advocates changing the system by "...
We have just returned from attending the final conference of the Lab on Institutional Corruption at the EJ Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard.
The kick off presentation was a discussion between Larry Lessig, Director of the Lab and Dennis Thompson, the founder of the Ethics Center at Harvard. The link to this presentation, and all others of the confererence, will be posted on this site soon. Carla Miller, Founder of City Ethics, presented a workshop on "Innovations in Ethics...
Robert Prentice, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin
(Robert has developed an excellent website for teaching ethics: 3 series and 44 videos, including teaching notes. One of the best resources in the country.)
An important portion of the future of ethics training will be to...
Ethical Reasoning: Institutional Corruption was a course held from January 28, 2014 through May 26, 2014 at Harvard College. It was taught by Lawrence Lessig (Law School) and William E. English. The course consisted of 26 lectures and accompanying materials.
Course description:
Institutions make modern life possible by organizing human interactions on a massive scale. We generally benefit from the incentives,...
To build on the gains made in recent years, ethics training will have to accomplish several goals. First, ethics training needs to focus on unleashing participants’ intrinsic...
Larry Lessig has a concept of Institutional Corruption (IC) as a deviation from the purpose of the organization. This is shown graphically by a compass pointing north--true north is the purpose of the organization; if you get pulled off of true north (like with a magnet pulling the compass off of north), that represents corrupting influences.
So the number one question is what is the purpose of your organization? Why does...
This was a project that was helped by Represent.US and supported by citizen groups from right to left. I worked on the drafting of the referendum language. Here is today's press release from Represent.US:
Submitted on behalf of the Author: Mary M. Báthory Vidaver
Community Development Authorities
Community Development Authorities (CDAs) are quasi-governmental entities established by a local government at the request of private landowners to construct, maintain, and operate multiple types of public infrastructure within a specified district. Such infrastructure may include roads, water and sewer systems, schools, stadiums, and other public...