About A2Ethics.org
A2Ethics.org is a web-based social network dedicated to establishing a public forum where people from all walks of life can address ethical concerns, issues and decision-making.
Based in Ann Arbor (“A²”), Michigan, A2Ethics was founded by Jeanine DeLay, an educator with more than two decades of experience teaching ethics. Jeanine found that many of her younger former students were seeking mentors and resources to help them deal with moral and ethical dilemmas in everyday life.
“They felt isolated and insulated and wanted to have some direction,” said Jeanine, who wishes to encourage new approaches to popularizing ethics. “That’s really how this came to be.”
The result is A2Ethics.org, where people of all backgrounds and opinions can read about and discuss current ethical issues through news stories, commentaries, discussion boards, podcasts and public events.
A series on ethics in different workplaces, Kid Rock’s music distribution choices, and the various meanings of buying local and living the green life are just some examples of the ethical ground A2Ethics.org has covered to date.
Stay in tune with A2Ethics.org and take part in our ongoing ethical debates.
FAQ
Where’d you get the name A2Ethics?
Who runs A2Ethics.org?
Board of Directors
Podcasts
News and Articles
Discussion Forum
Resources
Events
Friends of A2Ethics
Contact Us
Where’d you get the name A2Ethics?
We’re based in Southeast Michigan – specifically, Ann Arbor, commonly nicknamed “A²”. We are a public forum where ethics in current events are discussed.
Original funding for A2Ethics.org came via a seed grant from the Civic Innovation Fund, a donor-advised fund held at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. Future funding will come from grants and donations.
Civic Ethicist Jeanine DeLay (pictured) has been involved in applied ethics education for over 25 years. She started ethics courses both for college prep students at Greenhills School in Ann Arbor and as a lecturer in the Division of Kinesiology at the University of Michigan. Read more about Jeanine and A2Ethics.org.
Civic Ethicist Barton Bund(pictured) is staff writer and co-editor for A2Ethics.org. He is the co-host of the A2Ethics.org podcast series Working Ethics and the creator of the original audio dramas The Ethicists and Murder Music: The Life and Work of Carlo Gesualdo.
(Click on photo to hear Bart and Jeanine's most recent ethics dilemmas.)
David Behen: Profile coming soon.
Martha Bloom: Martha L. Bloom is Vice President at the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation (AAACF). After over 25 years as a volunteer, board member and board president in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Ann Arbor, Martha joined the Community Foundation staff in 1997. Her duties have included managing the Foundation’s several competitive grant programs, its youth grant-making program (Youth Council), and its donor-advised funds. Currently, Martha works on special projects related to the Community Foundation’s mission to provide leadership in the community and serve donors.
Martha and her husband David (Chair, Department of Urology, UMMC) have lived in Ann Arbor since 1984 and have four adult children and three grandchildren. Their oldest son, Alex, is developmentally disabled and lives in the first Intentional Communities of Washtenaw (ICW) site at Summerfield Glen. Martha helped found ICW to provide housing, enhanced support services, and a supportive community for developmentally disabled adults.
Barton Bund: Barton Bund is the Artistic Director of the Blackbird Theatre, and an award-winning playwright. He has been a staff writer for Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, as well as a commissioned writer for the Purple Rose Theatre of Chelsea. In addition, Bart was a nominee for the Williamstown Theatre's L. Arnold Weissberger Award in Playwriting in 2002.
(A2Ethics.org Board of Directors: Jeanine DeLay and Barton Bund; Martha Bloom, Jamey Hein, Thai-vi Pham, David Behen; not pictured, Barney Maloy.)
Jeanine DeLay: This is Jeanine's third nonprofit start-up. She was a social entrepreneur long before the term became popular. And her goal as a board member is to help the organization create and establish new ways to make ethics popular and to interest everyone in becoming a civic ethicist in their community.
She finds working in new media with creative and caring people, who fuse and mix the humanities, science and the arts with ethics topics, to be the most exciting part of being a founding member of the A2Ethics.org board.
“The organization is a start-up, which gives everyone involved the opportunity to make their own mark in our community and to contribute to the different ideas we have in our society of what it means to live ethically.”
Jamey Hein: Jamey Hein is the Head of Middle School at Greenhills School, an independent school for students in grades 6-12, where in addition to his administrative role, he also teaches 8th grade English. His career has been spent entirely in the field of independent education, serving in many capacities including teacher, academic dean, curriculum coordinator, and admissions counselor at schools in Florida, Connecticut, and Philadelphia. Jamey's work in education has also taken him to various locations around the world, including Latin America and Africa, as a former leader of service and cultural immersion programs for students. A graduate of Denison University and the University of Virginia, Jamey's roots are tied to the New England area. He moved to Ann Arbor in 2007 with his wife Barrett and daughter Emery.
His interests in A2Ethics.org were originally sparked by a podcast, in which he participated, focused on the issue of ethics in education. He is particularly invested in fostering conversations amongst teachers and students surrounding issues of ethical development and awareness in school, and he is happy to be supporting a forum for such important and relevant dialogue.
Barney Maloy: Profile coming soon.
Thai-vi Pham: Profile coming soon.
A2Ethics.org holds regular discussions and public events which are recorded and made available as podcasts. You can listen to them directly through the website by clicking the triangular “play” button wherever it’s seen or by downloading the podcast to your computer or listening device.
Go to our Podcast Archive to find all of our podcasts, including everything from video of a lecture on the looting of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad to a discussion about genius composer and murderer Carlo Gesualdo to teachers talking about ethics in the classroom.
A2Ethics.org posts regular news stories and opinion pieces regarding ethics in everyday life and on current events.
Go to our News Story Archive to find all of our news stories, including an ethical take on everything from the legacy of Michael Jackson to citizen journalism to Valentine’s Day to lying to your boss.
Do you have a question regarding ethics? Do you think you have the answer to someone else’s moral dilemma? Bounce your thoughts off one another in A2Ethics.org’s Discussion Forum.
Topics for discussion include Sports Ethics, Ann Arbor Ethics, Ethics at Work and many more. Log in now to create your own topic.
A2Ethics.org provides resources for people interested in solving ethical conundrums, including Local Resources, National and Global Links, New and Old Media Ethical Reviews, Ethics Travel Destinations, Quizzes and Staff Picks.
A2Ethics.org holds regular public events where ethics ideas and moral dilemmas are presented and debated from various points of view.
A discussion with archeologist Katharyn Hanson about the looting of the Iraq National Museum in Baghdad; a madrigal concert and radio drama on the works of Renaissance composer and murderer Carlo Gesualdo; and panel discussions associated with artistic performances on topics such as epidemic preparedness; and breaking bad news; are some examples.
Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation
Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce
Blackbird Theatre
Greenhills School
Custom programmer and entrepreneur Wayne Eaker of Samutech, LLC provides hosting, website design, support and training services to A2Ethics.org.
A2Ethics.org wishes to recognize communications specialist Tom Carpenter for his photographs of Ann Arbor that grace our website. Tom also contributes as a webpage writer, editor and designer.
Do you have a question or comment about A2Ethics.org or the website? Contact A2Ethics.org.
