Duo brings ethics into big picture
New College Madison, foundation stir debate
By Anita Weier
November 28, 2005
Amid an increasingly shrill and divided society, two local men are
trying to bring people with different views together to talk - about
the environment, social issues and ethics.They
are James Knight, founder and president of the Bradshaw-Knight
Foundation, and the Rev. Vern Visick, executive director of New College
Madison, which is funded by the foundation. They share an office
building in an appropriately green house at 712 Harrison St. on
Madison's near west side. Knight, 52, started the foundation in 1999, after his father's estate left him financially able to do so. The
foundation says it strives to promote the preservation and conservation
of the ecological health of the United States, mainly by strengthening
the sustainability of rural and urban communities. Its goal is to
maintain "economically and spiritually healthy communities" in order to
provide a high quality of life. A former archaeologist, Knight had been exploring environmental ethics for some time. "Before
my father died I had entered Marquette University, in the hope of doing
a dissertation on Christian environmental ethics," he explained. He
left Marquette because of the responsibilities of the foundation and
being part owner of his father's air conditioning company,
Michigan-based Heat Controller Inc. Knight, who has lived in Madison since 1987, named the foundation after two family names. Bradshaw is his mother's maiden name. Under
the 501(c)3 rules, the foundation has to give away 5 percent of the
funds every year. It focuses on the Upper Midwest and the west slope of
Colorado, a center of organic agriculture. In 2004, the
foundation gave money to the Humane Farming Association, 1000 Friends
of Wisconsin Land Use Initiative, Friends of Troy Gardens, Midwest
Environmental Advocates, Wisconsin Interfaith Impact and other
organizations. But its largest grant - $70,000 - went to start
New College Madison, an organization headed by Visick, a former campus
minister who worked for the Madison Campus Ministry at the University
of Wisconsin for 23 years until he left in 1998 to finish a Ph.D. in
ethics and society at the University of Chicago. 'Prophetic inquiry:'
Visick, 66, said New College aims at stimulating "prophetic inquiry" on
the UW campus, usually in conjunction with other interested groups. It
has a Christian commitment, but is not part of any particular church.
He hopes to stimulate dialogue among the university, the church and the
larger community to help resolve social, environmental and ethical
issues. Knight said that "prophetic inquiry" is merely what the
great prophets of old did - "calling the people out to think about what
they are doing." A prophetic question, according to Knight, would
be Isaiah saying, "What will you do about the widows and orphans, you
kings and queens?" Both the foundation and New College want to stir debate, the two men said. "We mean to focus on illuminating the ethical issues in knowing, in the way a research university functions," Visick said. Ethical
and religious questions do rise in the life of a scientific and
technical university, he added, but they are sometimes sidestepped in
the course of busy college life. "The UW had an ethical heritage,
as a land grant university, to bring the benefits of science,
technology and research to farmers, miners, businesses and all the
people of the state. It is hard to imagine what the state would be like
without the UW," Visick said. University scientists also became
ethicists, he said, citing famous naturalist Aldo Leopold, who called
for a "land ethic," and Van Renesselaer Potter, a former UW-Madison
professor who coined the term "bioethics." "There are some areas
of dispute," Visick noted. "Some argue, for instance, that the way the
UW relates to the agricultural sector is to feed knowledge and
expertise into agribusiness corporations. "On the other hand,
there are programs that emphasize sustainable agricultural practices,
which came out of a critique on not doing enough to develop a
sustainable way of life." Christians divide: Another area of concern is whether adequate thought is given to where biotechnology is going, Visick stressed. "A
number of faculty work in that area, and there is a dispute about where
biotech is going, the tools we've developed on life care issues and
decision-making. In the debate over stem-cell research, the UW is at
the center. New College does not have a stand. But we do feel a broader
discussion of the issues is necessary, and we are developing programs
to see that happens." He also noted the split in the Christian
community on biotechnology issues. Catholics and Evangelicals have more
questions about the progress of technology than liberal and mainline
Christians, said Visick, who said those issues need to be discussed. "The
church and the university don't have a lot to do with each other. Many
in the UW would say that's a good thing. The separation helps those two
institutions develop their own lives, but there is a problem if there
is no communication," Visick said. "We are looking for ways to
develop ethical interest within the university, with a spillover to the
state. We are trying to highlight the initial ethical passion of the
UW, so it is not lost."
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