For several years professor of philosophy Norman Care has been on the advisory committee for Case Western Reserve University's Center for Biomedical Ethics, which was featured in a Cleveland Plain Dealer article 8 May. The center is launching a master's degree program in bioethics and has chosen its first class of 12 students, some of them already holding professional degrees and practicing as doctors or lawyers, Care says. He does not yet know his exact role in the new program but expects to be involved in seminars, where he will teach "a different kind of student" from those at Oberlin. Care's Oberlin courses include moral theory, political philosophy, the philosophy of art, and environmental ethics--"anything to do with values," he says, and he has had private-reading students in medical ethics. He serves on the Allen Memorial Hospital's ethics committee, along with several other Oberlin faculty members.
Danforth professor of religion Grover Zinn is coeditor of a book just published by Garland Publishing: Medieval France: An Encyclopedia. The 1,047-page book's numerous illustrations include architectural photographs from the Allen Memorial Art Museum's Clarence Ward photographic archive. "These photographs are widely recognized as some of the classic photographs of medieval church architecture," Zinn says. He contributed more than 50 articles to the encyclopedia; other contributors include associate professor of French Janice Zinser, professor of musicology Steven Plank, and several Oberlin alumni.
Zinn has been elected to a second three-year term as a member of the Council of the American Society of Church History.
Professor of flute and Robert W. Wheeler professor in performance Michel Debost received the 1995 Educational Press Association of America award for three of his monthly columns, "Debost's Comments" in Flute Talk, a subsidiary to The Instrumentalist (Observer 27 April 1995). During 1994 Debost performed the Mozart Flute and Harp Concerto with the Ohio Chamber Orchestra and performed on tour in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. He also toured the United States and Canada with the Trio Amici (with professor of pianoforte Monique Duphil and cellist Jay Humeston). This summer he will be playing and teaching in France and Japan, and in August he will attend the National Flute Association's convention.
For four weeks in January professor of environmental studies and politics David Orr was distinguished visiting professor at Ball State University's School of Architecture, where he taught an interdisciplinary course. In February at the University of Virginia's School of Architecture he gave a lecture titled "Declaration of Interdependence." Early in April Orr participated in the President's Council on Sustainable Development's education panel; later he moderated Chatham College's Rachel Carson Symposium; and on Earth Day he lectured at St. Olaf College. This month he has lectured at Middlebury College, Capital University, and Ohio State University's department of landscape architecture.
Syracuse University Press has published professor of politics Benjamin Schiff's book on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Observer 9 December 1993). The book's title is Refugees unto the Third Generation: UN Aid to Palestinians.
Director of communications Alan Moran has named photographer Rick Sherlock art director for the office of communications. He will coordinate the art and creative services for all publications and electronic media produced by the communications staff and will work with the staff to develop creative solutions to art-design problems and requests. He also will work as a liasion between clients, editors and designers.
David Schober '96, who majors in composition and piano performance, won a $5,000 Presser Music Award. The Presser Foundation specifies that the award is for a "returning undergraduate student who has demonstrated superb musical talent." It has given the award to a conservatory student every year since 1989.
