UNC Parr Center for Ethics

As the semester comes to a close, we want to thank everyone who joined us for our Spring 2026 Speaker Series! These events created a space for our community to share their perspectives, think critically, and come together in meaningful dialogue. A special thank you to our incredible speakers, Elizabeth Harman, Anya Plutynski, and Holden Thorp, for leading engaging discussions on ethics.

We appreciate everyone who participated and look forward to another Speaker Series next semester. Stay tuned for more opportunities to learn, connect, and engage at the Parr Center!

Join Dr. Teresa Bejan, Professor of Political Theory at the University of Oxford, this week for a discussion on the history and meaning of equality. Drawing from her forthcoming book "First Among Equals", she will examine how a 17th-century social movement radically transformed the meaning of equality long before the Declaration of Independence, and how those ideas continue to shape debates about equality today in Europe, America, and beyond.

The panel discussion on April 18 will feature the Parr Center’s Associate Director, Michael Vazquez!

This symposium is free and open to all. No registration required.

Join us this month for the remaining Educating for the Virtues of Attention (EVA) events! In a culture where speed and distraction have become the norm, this project invites a slower, more deliberate way of engaging with yourself, culture, the natural world, and one another.

Events are free for students, with CLE credit and food provided!

Take a break from the scroll and invest in your attention.
RSVP: go.unc.edu/eva

Join us Thursday, April 9 for an engaging conversation on the history, ethics, and policy of animal research, presented in partnership with the Animal Studies Project, Department of Philosophy, and Center for Bioethics. This book panel will feature Lab Dog author Melanie D.G. Kaplan alongside an esteemed group of panelists.

This event is free and open to the public, with a reception to follow. UNC attendees may register (optional) via the link in our bio.

Opinion | The Real ‘Diploma Divide’ Is About Identity, Not Beliefs

The familiar narrative that colleges are fueling a growing divide in political beliefs is not backed up by the data. But something else consequential has changed. By Michael Vazquez and Michael Prinzing. https://bit.ly/41pTCXQ

Two weeks ago, we kicked off our Deep Reading Club on Lucretius at Epilogue Books on Franklin St. Over hot chocolate and in good company, we read philosophical poetry out loud, a poem about the natural world and the atomic arrangements that make up everything around us.

The gathering is one small part of a larger semester of events through Educating for the Virtues of Attention (EVA), a campus wide initiative promoting attentional habits that help us flourish and live in community. This spring has included tea meditation, close looking at the Ackland, juggling at Morehead Planetarium, and student focus groups on attention, with dinner and Macbeth at PlayMakers happening tonight. Still ahead are the Martha Graham Dance Company at Memorial Hall, a poetry workshop at Epilogue, environmental ethics and nature sitting at the Botanical Garden, alongside more reading groups, discussion circles, and meditation.

Across campus and across forms, UNC is helping lead the way in showing what it means to educate attention. Learn more: go.unc.edu/eva

Join us for the final event of our Spring 2026 Speaker Series: Parr Center Presents Holden Thorp (Editor-in-Chief, Science). Thorp will argue that navigating U.S. science policy in times of political turmoil requires confronting difficult choices between resistance and cooperation.

Light refreshments will be served at 6:30 and CLE credit will be offered!

Join us next week for a two-day international workshop bringing together scholars, educators, and students from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Tübingen to explore how ethical reflection can keep pace with rapid developments in artificial intelligence. This event is open to members of the campus community with an interest in ethics, education, technology, and public life.

CLE credit and Ethics Scholar make-up credit will be offered for attending featured talks.

This event is hosted by the Parr Center for Ethics in partnership with the International Center for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW). Visit the link in our bio for more information & full workshop schedule!