On January 28, 2011, nine Jesuit students were selected to attend the 13th annual Ethics Symposium at the Dallas Bible Church sponsored by the Shelton School.
The goal of the Symposium was to give students insight on the skills necessary to benefit the community. As is the norm for Jesuit students, we arrived ready and eager to start the day ahead and learn new things. As we came in, some very personable Shelton students who would help run the event greeted us. They said it would be very fun and that they had a lot of activities planned. We all then went into a large room and were each assigned a different table with students from other schools around Dallas. We became comfortable with the new people through icebreaker games that had been set up for us. From here on throughout the day we would listen to many speeches and talks from many doctors, priests, and businessmen. They would speak to us about how we can make ethical choices in our daily lives whether no one is looking or everyone is. The last aspect we learned was the idea of “The Golden Mean.” “The Golden Mean” was explained as aiming to achieve the intermediate in between an excess and a defect. For example, courage is the intermediate between being cowardly and being foolish. To fully understand the concept, each table created a skit of the excess, the defect, and then “The Golden Mean” for several different traits.
Overall, it was a fun time as students met a lot of new people and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I spoke with a student afterword about his thoughts on the Symposium and he said: “It gave us a lot of insight on the moral issues of our modern society and was a great experience.”
Sources: How Good People Make Tough Choices by Rushworth Kidder
Students who attended:
Sophomores Joe Farmer, Drew Highlander, Nathan Krog, Alex Leitnick, Daniel Morris, Brandon Rodenroth, Basil Seif, Jack White, Will Wood
