The Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission (THGAAC) is dedicated to its mission of promoting awareness of the Holocaust and genocides to educate and inspire our citizens in the prevention of future atrocities. Among the THGAAC’s goals is to educate students to better understand the consequences of hatred, bigotry and apathy. Focus on students’ education is an investment in our future.
Toward that goal, the THGAAC is promoting ethics education in Texas colleges and universities through a professional development module that will aid educators in incorporating ethics in core curriculum courses. These modules will help educators fulfill the mandate to meet two particular core objectives set forth by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB):
- Personal Responsibility - to include the ability to connect choices, actions and consequences to ethical decision-making
- Social Responsibility - to include intercultural competence, knowledge of civic responsibility, and the ability to engage effectively in regional, national, and global communities
The THGAAC's hope is to help students chose right over wrong and to understand that they are responsible for the consequences of those choices. It is imperative to acknowledge that the only way ethics can be taught successfully is to include some ethics at every stage of education and have the lessons consistently reinforced by the institution.
The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), in partnership with the former Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston's McGovern Center for Humanities and Ethics, offers modules designed to provide college-level faculty with effective strategies to improve the integration and teaching of ethics into the core curriculum of entry-level college courses across disciplines. The modules are designed for faculty who may or may not be trained in ethics as a field of study, and they can be scaled for use in any class size. The four modules can be integrated effectively into face-to-face, tech-enhanced, hybrid, or fully online delivery formats. This free professional development opportunity can be accessed through the link below: