2. As the public face of the University’s
commitment to ethics, the Parr
Center engages the social and
intellectual challenges of our time.
Our aim is to promote ethical
development by providing the necessary
resources theoretical development,
empirical knowledge, and discussion
opportunities to raise visibility and
advance understanding of how we ought
to live.
Jan Boxill, Director
Mission
The Parr Center serves as a hub for ethical engagement at UNC-Chapel Hill by bringing
together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and other members of the
local and national community. Ethicists and other experts work together to highlight the
ethical implications facing us throughout our lives in how we work, play, consume, learn,
love and die. By sponsoring lectures, disscusion panels, conferences, and programs, we bring
together experts from a variety of professions and reach across campus and beyond to make
our community and world more ethically conscious.
History
The Parr Center for Ethics was established in 2004-2005 thanks to a generous gift from the
Gary W. Parr Family Foundation. Plans for the Center grew naturally in the fertile soil of the
Ethics Fellows Program in the College’s Institute for Arts and Humanities which was begun in
1997. That program helped to consolidate a community of scholars from across the
University, all of whose research and teaching interests are squarely in ethics. Capitalizing on
this community, the Parr Center for Ethics seeks to encourage and foster the palpable need for
fruitful discussion and exploration of ethical issues.

3. Programs National High School
The Parr Center works with specific groups to incubate and nurture an ethically
conscious society. Examples include Ethics in the Workplace training for UNC-Chapel
Hill employees; Ethics in Research training for graduate and post-doctoral students,
Ethics Bowl
faculty, and staff; ethics training for attorneys through a Continuing Legal Education Few high schools have a philosophy or ethics curriculum. Because teenagers are
partnership with the School of Law; exploration of bioethical issues with the Center for defining their ethical compasses, the Parr Center has undertaken an effort to encourage
Bioethics at UNC-Chapel Hill; the UNC-Chapel Hill Ethics Bowl team, and the ethical thinking in this audience. In 2011, the Center hosted the first successful high school
National High School Ethics Bowl project. ethics bowl competition in North Carolina. The following year the field doubled in size.
After that success in early 2012, a group of peer institutions selected the Parr Center to be
the headquarters for the newly formed National High School Ethics Project and the host of
the first national championship event in Spring 2013.
UNC Ethics Bowl Team
Through the Parr Center, UNC-Chapel Hill has a team that successfully competes in
intercollegiate regional and national championship competitions. Ethics Bowl is a
competition where a moderator poses questions to teams of students. Questions may concern
ethical problems on a wide range of topics from academic honesty to personal relationships.
A panel of judges evaluates answers based on intelligibility, focus on ethically relevant
considerations, avoidance of ethical irrelevance, and deliberative thoughtfulness.

4. The Lunch & Learn is a Parr Center signature event.
Events
Several times each semester, an expert presents on a specific
ethical topic related to his or her field of expertise. These events
cover a wide variety of ethical issues; for example, the
environment, war, factory farming, biodiversity, and health care
The Parr Center produces or sponsors dozens of ethics-related programs - just in one semester. Lunch & Learns are popular with students,
and events each year, from large public lectures to smaller panel discussions. faculty, staff, and members of the local community.
Event topics cover nearly the entire range of human existence: birth, death,
war, labor, food, rights, and recreation. Most Parr Center events are open to
all students, faculty, staff, and the community at large. Lunch & Learn
The Center regularly
sponsors conference on a
variety of ethical
topics, bringing together
experts, academics,
professionals, and
students from
numerous backgrounds The Parr Center hosts and sponsors a number of
to discuss ethics. public lectures and panel discussions each
academic year. Whether a well-known lecturer
or a panel of undergraduates, these events probe
our understanding and knowledge of ethical
implications in all that we do.
Conferences Panels and Lectures

5. Get Involved
The Parr Center has an extensive network of fellows that serves as the backbone of the
organization. University faculty and students help to formulate ideas, prepare for events, serve on panels, give lectures,
and judge ethics bowl competitions. For more information on becoming a Fellow, please visit our website:
parrcenter.unc.edu
Director Jan Boxill with panelists from the September 2011 discussion, “Respect and Revolution of the Black Athlete”.
Giving
For information on contributing to the Parr Center for Ethics,
visit parrcenter.unc.edu/giving or call (919) 962-0108.
Winner of the 2008 American Philosophical Association
Philosophy Documention Center Award
For Excellence and Innovations in Philosophy Programs
Think deeply, live honorably.
207 Caldwell Hall, CB# 3125 | Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3125 | parrcenter@unc.edu
facebook.com/parrcenterforethics
twitter.com/theparrcenter