Symposium examaines Faith-Based Initiatives

JACKSONVILLE -- President Bush’s recent proposals to expand government support for religiously based social services will be the subject of a public symposium sponsored by the Center for Ethics, Public Policy and the Professions at the University of North Florida.
The symposium will be April 4 from 7 - 9:30 p.m. in the small auditorium of the Fine Arts Building.
The symposium will consider whether such proposals to expand government support for religiously-based social services are desirable as matters of public policy. It also will address broader questions concerning the relationship of religion and politics in American society today.
The featured speaker will be Dr. Mary S. Segers, professor, department chair, and graduate program director for the Department of Political Science at Rutgers University-Newark.
To facilitate audience participation, brief commentaries will be provided by members of the UNF faculty: Dr. Michael Hallet, associate professor of Criminal Justice, and Dr. Henry Thomas, associate professor and chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration.
The event will be moderated by Dr. Andrew Buchwalter, director of the center and associate professor of philosophy. Segers has written widely about religious and ethical values underlying public policy. Her books include A Wall of Separation? Debating the Role of Religion in American Public Life (1998); Abortion Politics in American States (1995 co-edited with Timothy Byrnes); The Catholic Church and Abortion Politics: A View from the States (1992, co-edited with Timothy Byrnes); and Elusive Equality: Liberalism, Affirmative Action and Social Change in America (1983).
In 1999 Professor Segers served as Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Studies at the University of Warsaw. In 1998 she received the Charles Pine Award for Excellence in Teaching at Rutgers-Newark. She held a Henry Luce Fellowship in Theology at Harvard Divinity School from 1987 to 1989. In addition, she served as visiting lecturer in the Women's Studies Program at Harvard Divinity School in the l985-86 academic year.