Markkula Prize 2017

Graduating seniors Jenna Bagley and Maggie Simons won the 2016-17 Markkula Prize, awarded to students who have shown leadership in programming or research in applied ethics.

Bagley, a research assistant for the Center’s Bioethics Program, performed research that will be the foundation of a new mental health area in the Bioethics portion of the Center’s website. Simons was honored for her Hackworth Fellowship project: a series of three concerts called “Pathway to Peace.”  

Bagley investigated the ethical issues in the mental health field in general as well as those faced by mental health professionals, including the most common ethical dilemmas faced by those treating patients with mental health issues in specific environments. Bagley also staffed and developed materials for the multidisciplinary mental health and faith conference recently hosted at SCU and co-sponsored by the Ethics Center.  

Bagley graduated with a triple major in Psychology, Spanish, and Women’s and Gender Studies, and a double minor in Sociology and Latin American Studies. In addition to working back home in Chicago after graduation, Bagley will continue her work with us over the summer in order to finalize materials for our website, including lists of top ethical dilemmas, valuable resources, and case studies. 

Simons, a double major in music and psychology also from the Chicago area, produced three concerts, all thematically tied to the concept of peace, and all featuring SCU students.  Simons herself:

• sang solos in English and French,
• arranged and sang a duet during which she played piano,
• arranged an cappella piece,
• sang in a quartet,
• sang in a small chorus,
• commissioned an SCU student to compose a work for small choir,
• conductedthat work for choir, and
• wrote a piece herself for string quartet and vocal quartet based on the personal testimony she had gathered from SCU students who had suffered because of their cultural or personal diversity.

The Markkula Prizes were set up by the Center's Advisory Board in honor of the board's first chair, A.C. "Mike" Markkula Jr., who, with his wife Linda, gave seed funding for the Center and continues to support its efforts.