The Cary M. Maguire Center for Ethics
& Public Responsibility was funded by an endowment of $2.5 million
from its namesake in 1995. The center is the culmination of years of
planning by visionary members of the faculty, then-Provost Ruth Morgan,
President ad interim James Kirby,
and President Gerald Turner, all of whom believe that in today's
hurried world it takes intentional reflection to devise ethical
responses to society's problems.
Our first director (1995-98) was Professor William F. May, who was also the
first member of the faculty to occupy the Maguire Chair in Ethics and who
more recently held
the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in American History and Ethics in the John W. Kluge Center of
the Library of Congress. Many of the center's current activities and
programs were established during Bill May's productive tenure as director.
Our second director (1998-2005), Professor Richard O. Mason, the Carr P. Collins Professor of Management
Information Sciences Emeritus at the Cox School of Business, continued
the center along the course charted by Bill May and intensified our outreach to
other educational and business organizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth community.
The third director was Professor Thomas Mayo (2005-2010) of the Dedman School
of Law. He continued the programs normally sponsored by the Maguire Center
and created ongoing relationships with the North Texas Bioethics Network and the
Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. In addition, he expanded the
number of public service interns that the center sponsors and directed the first
two-day conference that the center had ever held.
Our fourth director is Rita G. Kirk, Ph.D., (2011- ),
Professor of Communication Studies at the Meadows School of the Arts.