Saturday, September 20, 2014
1:30–3 p.m.
Moore Theater, The Hopkins Center for the Arts
Join Professor Kenneth Sharpe ’66 and Dr. Joseph O’Donnell for talks on how practical wisdom can help us lead satisfying lives.

How to Do the Right Thing: Designing Institutions Where Wise Practitioners Can Flourish
Kenneth Sharpe ’66
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College

Using the Hidden Curriculum to Teach Practical Wisdom
Joseph O’Donnell, MD
Senior Advising Dean and Professor of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Senior Scholar, C. Everett Koop Institute

Co-sponsored by the Dartmouth Ethics Institute and with the support of Daniel Lucey ’77, Geisel ’81


Kenneth Sharpe ’66
William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College
The coauthor of Practical Wisdom, Ken Sharpe teaches political philosophy, practical ethics, Latin American politics, and foreign policy at Swarthmore College. Sharpe has been a visiting scholar at the Dartmouth Ethics Institute and a frequent visiting scholar in the government department, and has taught in Dartmouth’s Master of Arts in Liberal Studies program. A widely published author, he has written about the drug war, the activities and conflicts of U.S. corporations operating abroad, and peasant movements struggling for justice. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Nation, and American Prospect. Sharpe’s passion is teaching—and designing institutions that encourage teachers and other practitioners how to learn the practical wisdom they need to do their work well.


Joseph O’Donnell, MD
Senior Advising Dean and Professor of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
Senior Scholar, C. Everett Koop Institute
Over the past 40 years, Joseph O’Donnell has established a reputation as an advocate for a culture of caring in the medical community and as a champion for mentoring and professional growth for physicians. O’Donnell is currently a senior advising dean and director of Community Programs at the Geisel School of Medicine and the senior scholar at the C. Everett Koop Institute. He is devoted to connecting students with opportunities for service and using literature and the arts to reflect on that service, as a means to moral development. O’Donnell is a founder of Geisel’s Community Service Committee, the Dartmouth chapter of Physicians for Human Rights, the College’s international programs in Kosovo, its Urban Scholars program, and its chapter of the Gold Humanism in Medicine Honor Society. O’Donnell also helped found, and now leads, the NH-VT Albert Schweitzer Fellowship Program. He serves on the boards of the Harvard-Pilgrim Healthcare Foundation (devoted to the control of childhood obesity) and the AVA Gallery in the Upper Valley.