Exploring Moral Courage

1. Program Overview
2. Participant Biographies
3. Program Videos
4. Program Poster (.pdf -- requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view)

Participant Biographies

Victoria Barnett

Victoria Barnett is a graduate of Indiana University (Bloomington) and Union Theological Seminary (New York). Her field of expertise is the history of the churches during the Holocaust. She has been a consultant to the Church Relations Department of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D. C. since 1994, and is associate general editor of the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works series, English edition (Fortress Press). She is presently pursuing a doctorate in the area of religion and conflict at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.

She is the author of For the Soul of the People: Protestant Protest Against Hitler (Oxford University Press, 1992) and Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity during the Holocaust (Greenwood Press, 1999). She was also editor and translator of And the Witnesses were Silent: the Confessing Church and the Jews, by Wolfgang Gerlach (University of Nebraska Press, 2000), and of the new revised English edition of Eberhard Bethge's Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography (Fortress Press, 2000). She is author of an essay on Bonhoeffer that was commissioned by the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and published on the Museum's web-site in 1997, and has published over 70 articles, book chapters, and book reviews.

David Kaczynski

David and his wife Linda faced a nightmare when they began to suspect that David's brother Theodore might be the "Unabomber," a serial bomber responsible for three deaths and 23 injuries over 17 years. David and Linda had to decide whether to confront their worst fears or bury them; whether to involve Ted's and David's elderly mother; whether to bring their suspicions to the FBI knowing that David's brother could face execution. After Theodore's arrest, David and Linda had to deal both publicly and privately with the consequences of their decision.

The couple felt betrayed when the U.S. Justice Department broke its promise to keep the family’s role in the investigation confidential and again when it sought the death penalty despite Theodore’s serious mental illness. David and Linda lobbied tirelessly for nearly two years to prevent the execution of David’s brother.

In 1998, David and Linda received a million-dollar reward from the Justice Department for their role in the Unabomb investigation, which they subsequently dedicated – minus attorney’s fees and taxes - to the victims and their families. With help from the Community Foundation for the Capital Region, they set up the Unabomb Survivors Fund, which distributed $680,000 to victims of the assaults.

Abby Baird

Dr. Baird is a developmental neuroscientist at Dartmouth College, where she is an Assistant Professor, and Directory of the Laboratory for Adolescent Studies in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences. Professor Baird specializes in the application of neuroimaging techniques to the study of the developing brain, with a particular focus on adolescence. Currently, she is examining structural and physiological changes in the limbic system of adolescents. The goal of this research is to better understand how these changes relate to the emergence of specific cognitive and emotional behaviors that are unique to adolescence. Dr. Baird received her Bachelor's degree from Vassar College in 1991, and both a Masters and Doctoral Degree from Harvard University in 1999 and 2001.

Gregory Mellema

Gregory Mellema is Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College, where he has taught from 1975 to 1976 and from 1978 to the present. Mellema received his doctorate from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1974. He was an instructor at St. Olaf College from 1974 to 1975. He later earned a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Michigan, a degree which qualified him to teach and write about business ethics.

He is the author of four books, Individuals, Groups, and Shared Moral Responsibility, Beyond the Call of Duty, Collective Responsibility, and The Expectations of Morality, and of a booklet, The Bottom Line. He has contributed articles to five reference works, Magill's Reference in Ethics, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Encyclopedia of Contemporary Ethical Issues, Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, and Encyclopedia of Ethical Issues in Politics and the Media. His articles have appeared in over twenty different journals, including American Philosophical Quarterly, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophia, and Analysis. Most of his recent articles deal with issues in ethics, both theoretical and applied, but he has also published in the areas of philosophy of language, logic, and the philosophy of education.

Susan Rescorla

Susan Rescorla graduated from Endicott College just outside of Boston. She then continued her studies in Spain, concentrating on Spanish Art and art in general. She has been fortunate enough to travel most of the world, she has three grown children and three grandchildren, and she is now retired. Susan's husband, Rick Rescorla, a Vietnam veteran, was Vice President of Security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter when the World Trade Towers in New York City were attacked on September 11, 2001. Rick bravely saved thousands of people from the burning towers before perishing inside the building. Since 9/11 her mission has been to have the world not forget what happened to her husband and all the others on that fateful day.

Leon Sheleff

Leon Sheleff was born in South Africa, immigrated to Israel in 1957, studied law at the University of Cape Town and sociology at Ohio State University, receiving a Ph.D. in 1970. Since then he has lectured at Tel Aviv University in the faculty of Law and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, of which he was the chair for several years. Leon has written nine books on legal, sociological and criminological topics with the most recent publication being "The Future of Tradition... Customary Law, Common Law and Legal Pluralism". An earlier book, relevant to the conference is "The Bystander . . . Behavior, Law, Ethics", published in 1978.

Hugh C. Thompson, Jr.

Letters began arriving in Hugh Thompson's mailbox in March of 1998, shortly after the American public learned of his heroic actions as a U .S. soldier in Vietnam some 30 years earlier. People all over the world had heard the dark and horrible side of the story of the My Lai massacre, in which some 500 women, children, babies and old men had been slaughtered by out-of-control U.S. ground troops in March of 1968. But they had never heard the part about how Hugh Thompson and his crew set their helicopter down in the midst of the madness and risked their lives to save nine unarmed civilians from a sure death. Nor were they aware that it was Thompson's loud and angry protest over the airwaves that brought about the cease-fire that put an end to the massacre. Had it not been for this singular act of courage and compassion on the part of Thompson and his crew, many more South Vietnamese civilians would have died.

The U.S. Army finally decorated Thompson for heroism in March of 1998, some 30 years after the massacre. He received the Soldier's Medal at the Vietnam Wall in Washington in a ceremony that was publicized throughout the United States and internationally. For more information on Hugh Thompson, please visit www.hughthompson.com.

Marion Pritchard

Marion Pritchard, a resident of Vershire, VT, and a practicing psychoanalyst in Norwich, VT, came of age in occupied Holland during World War II. When confronted by the inhumanity of the Nazi Party, she risked her life and her future by saving or attempting to save the lives of hundreds of Jews. Her only regret? That she could not save more.