Ethics Education

One of my goals as an educator is to expand students' ethical sensitivity, ethical reasoning skills, and moral imaginations through both my teaching and community engagement activities. As a research associate of CSUB's Kegley Institute of Ethics, I regularly serve on panels to discuss the ethical implications of current events, participate in a campus-wide Ethics across the Curriculum initiative, and serve as a team coach or competition judge for local and regional Ethics Bowl competitions. I am an active member of CSUB’s Title IX Advisory Board, I served as the faculty advisor for Club GEN (Gender Equality Now) from 2010-2019, and I organized the CSUB Gender Matters student research symposiums in 2012 and 2013. I have also served as regular speaker at campus Sexual Assault Prevention month events, at a local Alliance Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, and at East Bakersfield High School.

In 2015, I developed a sophomore-level course, PHIL/INST 2329, titled “Sexual Ethics” for CSUB’s general education program, which is cross-listed with both the Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Studies programs. I created this course in an effort to present undergraduate students, a population widely recognized as at risk for sexual misconduct, with an opportunity to critically reflect on their attitudes about sexuality, the difficulties associated with identifying and communicating their sexual desire or lack thereof with potential partners, and their ethical duty to respect the sexual and relational autonomy of others. To that end, this course introduces students to the myriad ways in which social relations and sexual identities influence ethical judgments regarding various sexual practices and attitudes. Topics include the role of sexuality in human life and its relation to love and to marriage, the historical emergence of forms of sexual desire (“sexualities” and the categories of sexual orientation), the meaning and value of sexual freedom and sexual consent, sexual objectification and commodification, sexual subcultures and communities, and the intersection of sexuality with other forms of identity such as race, class, gender, religion, and ability.