Dennis Cooley, professor of philosophy and ethics and director of the Northern Plains Ethics Institute at NDSU, has been named to the Humanities North Dakota board of directors. Cooley, who will serve a three-year term, joins Patty Corwin, NDSU senior lecturer of sociology, on the board.
“Public humanities makes an essential contribution to North Dakota and everywhere else it is encountered,” Cooley said. “It teaches critical reasoning skills, which everyone recognizes as a public good, but also incorporates our wrongly neglected creative thinking and value engagement that are part of who we are as people interacting with others in our private and public lives. Humanities North Dakota has a unique ability to provide events across the state that make us better people in better communities.”
Humanities North Dakota is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to providing lifelong learning opportunities to the citizens of the state. Established in 1974 as a partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities, it is not a state agency and does not receive state funding.
“I’m excited to work with Dr. Cooley to bring humanities scholarship off campus and into our communities. He has been one of our go-to scholars for years, so he knows first-hand the value of our programs,” said Humanities North Dakota executive director Brenna Gerhardt.
Cooley earned his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Rochester. His teaching and research interests include theoretical and applied ethics with a focus on pragmatism, bioethics, business ethics, personhood, and death and dying. He is the author of “Technology, Transgenics, and a Practical Moral Code” and “Death’s Values and Obligations: A Pragmatic Framework” and he co-edited “Passing/Out: Identity Veiled and Revealed.” He is secretary general of the International Academy of Medical Ethics and Public Health, editor of Springer’s International Library of Bioethics and associate editor of Elsevier’s Ethics, Medicine and Public Health.
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