Mudd Center Annual Report 2025

Lexington, Virginia

I’m delighted to share highlights from the Mudd Center’s 2024–25 series on medical ethics. Over the past year, “How We Live and Die: Stories, Communities, Values” invited our community to explore the layered, complex, and deeply human questions surrounding medical research, treatment, and access. At the heart of our inquiry were four guiding principles of American medical ethics, first articulated in the 1970s by philosophers Tom Beauchamp and James Childress: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

Our year-long program brought together the humanities and sciences, offering fresh perspectives on some of the most urgent medical ethics issues of our time. We began with anesthesiologist Adjoa Boateng Evans, who spoke about how critical care physicians can honor a patient’s autonomy while minimizing harm. Physician and author Ricardo Nuila challenged us to think about the moral imperative of health insurance and the crucial role safety-net hospitals play for those without coverage.

From questions of access, we moved into the ethics of medical research with professor Carl Elliott, who shared stories of whistleblowers willing to risk everything to expose inhumane experimentation. Winter Term brought a visual dimension of the year’s theme with artist Erica Lord, whose intricate beadwork reimagines DNA sequencing patterns of diseases endemic to Indigenous communities in North America.

One of the year’s most anticipated events was the panel “How We Die”, which explored the ethical debates surrounding Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD). We asked: What does it mean to die with dignity? And what tensions arise between social values and personal beliefs in this practice? When a snowstorm shut down the university, we quickly moved the conversation online, where moderator and W&L alumna Kerry Egan ’95 guided a rich and thoughtful discussion.

In March, we closed the series with Jim Withers, founder of the Street Medicine Institute, whose work delivering healthcare to unsheltered individuals inspired us to consider what radical responsibility in medicine truly means.

Through these voices and stories, the Mudd Center wove together insights from anthropology, art, ethics, law, medicine, and religion. The result was a deeply engaging, multidisciplinary conversation about how we live and die — one that resonated widely, as reflected in our enthusiastic and diverse audiences.

This year also marked the launch of the Leadership Lab, a new annual initiative exploring the characteristics of ethical and responsible leadership across professions. In keeping with W&L’s mission to prepare graduates for responsible leadership, the Leadership Lab provides a forum for students and community members to reflect, discuss, and develop these qualities. We were honored to have W&L president emeritus Kenneth Ruscio ’76 inaugurate the series during Spring Term.

Looking back on both the medical ethics series and the Leadership Lab, common themes emerge: trust, justice, humility, and beneficence. These values — when practiced — become ethical acts, fostering both individual and collective well-being.

We now turn our attention to 2025–26, when the Mudd Center will explore environmental ethics. This theme, chosen in consultation with students, faculty, and staff, aligns closely with the university’s strategic plan and promises rich opportunities for interdisciplinary engagement. We hope you’ll join us for “Taking Place: Land Use and Environmental Impact” as we continue to ask challenging, necessary questions together.

My very best,

A DETAIL OF ONE OF ERICA LORD’S GLASS BEAD BURDEN BELTS FEATURED IN HER ON-CAMPUS EXHIBITION THE CODES WE CARRY.

During our year-long program, “How We Live and Die: Stories, Values, and Communities,” the Mudd Center for Ethics partnered with campus and community groups to host compelling voices that inspired deep conversation about some of today’s most pressing issues in medical ethics. Our framework drew on the four guiding pillars of American medical ethics, established in 1979. We also recognized, however, that ethical codes in medicine are not the sole province of Western culture. Ancient Chinese, Indian, and medieval Ottoman traditions all produced pledges and treatises aimed at preserving the caregiver–patient relationship. Across cultures and centuries, medical codes share a core commitment to common morality, grounded in trust — between physician and patient and between medicine and society.

Over the past two decades, the fields of narrative ethics and medical humanities have emphasized the power of storytelling in fostering that trust. Story-sharing can be a source of resilience and well-being for patients, providers, and communities alike. Moreover, these testimonies can reveal that our codes of medical ethics may need to be inflected and nuanced given a specific need based on prognosis or religious concern. This interplay of ethics, medicine, and narrative became the heart of this year’s exploration of Western medical ethics.

The program’s narrative focus connected closely to the concept of testimonial justice, rooted in philosopher Miranda Fricker’s work on testimonial and epistemic injustice. Fricker, who was a Mudd speaker in 2018, challenges us to consider not only whose stories are told but whose voices are heard and by whom when shaping bodies of knowledge and understanding.

The yearlong series included lectures, a panel discussion, and a multimedia art exhibition, which blended the scope and depth of both the humanities and sciences. This collaborative endeavor could only have happened with the support and engagement of many different individuals and groups on and off campus who helped bring the sciences and arts together in robust conversations. We are especially indebted to Brittany Carr, assistant director of career and professional development, pre-health professions; Beth Staples, assistant professor of English and editor of Shenandoah literary magazine; Kevin McNamee-Tweed, director of the Staniar Gallery; and Marisa Charley, director of the Bonner Program and associate director of the Shepherd Program. We also thank the Departments of History, Philosophy, Art and Art History, Environmental Studies, and Biology; the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program; and the Class of 1963 Scholars in Residence Program administered by the Provost’s Office.

Beyond campus, we were fortunate to have connected with Tasha Walsh from ConnectionsPlus Healthcare + Hospice in Lexington, who led a moving conversation following the MAiD webinar. And of course, our gatherings were sweetened — quite literally — with coffee and cupcakes from Lexington Coffee Shop and Cupcake Heaven.

SPEAKERS 2024-2025

Dr. Adjoa Boateng Evans

CLINICAL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DUKE DEPARTMENT OF ANESTHESIOLOGY, DIVISION OF CRITICAL CARE MEDICINE, AND FACULTY ASSOCIATE AT THE TRENT CENTER FOR BIOETHICS, HUMANITIES & HISTORY OF MEDICINE, DUKE UNIVERSITY

The lecture series started off with a public talk titled “In Critical Condition: A State of the Union on Compassion, Death and Purpose” by Dr. Adjoa Boateng Evans, assistant professor of anesthesiology at Duke University School of Medicine and faculty associate at Duke’s Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine. As the keynote, Evans’ perspective embodied the three-pronged approach of the series: ethics, medicine and narrative. Indeed, her training in history and medicine as an undergraduate and her penetrating insights into human pain and suffering as a critical care physician and professor set a tenor of informed inquiry and empathetic listening as we began to grapple with ethical dilemmas facing critical care physicians. She had us think through what end-of-life care and medical directives look like and what their effectiveness is within the larger medical apparatus. In essence, she emphasized the ways physicians hope to maximize a patient’s autonomy and minimize maleficence, but some situations arise in urgent care that can complicate even the best of intentions.

Ricardo Nuila, MD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, MEDICAL ETHICS, AND HEALTH POLICY, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

Dr. Ricardo Nuila is an associate professor of medicine, medical ethics, and health policy at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab (HEAL) program. As both a writer and a doctor, his work raises questions about health disparities in Texas and the long-term effects of insurance policies that can leave many uninsured. At the center of his talk were several case studies he drew on from his 2024 book titled “The People’s Hospital,” which follows uninsured patients he has treated at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston and chronicles their experiences with the American healthcare system.

Carl Elliott, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA; AFFILIATE FACULTY, BIOETHICS CENTRE, UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO (NEW ZEALAND)

Medical ethicist Carl Elliott, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, delivered a lecture titled “The Occasional Human Sacrifice: Medical Experimentation and the Price of Saying No,” based on his 2024 book of the same title. In his talk, Elliott highlighted the convoluted apparatus of American medicine by raising difficult and uncomfortable questions about the intentions and assumptions around medical practice — everything from research experimentation on drugs to practices of peddling those same pharmaceuticals. He highlighted the stories and testimonies of “whistleblowers,” disclosed unethical and abusive medical experiments, and the emotional and professional cost of doing so. Through sharing these instances of immoral medical experimentation and subsequent whistleblowing, Elliott prompted us to question the future of bioethics, based on a justifiably distrustful past.

Terri Laws, Ph.D.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, AFRICAN AND AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-DEARBORN

Professor Terri Laws delivered the last lecture titled “African Americans, Religion, and the Legalization of Death with Dignity,” which explored the influence of race and religion as key factors contributing to disproportionately few Black requests for Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) as an end-oflife choice. Laws explored how cultural and faith traditions need to be considered in this new medical frontier of MAiD. Laws received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati, her Master of Divinity from the Morehouse School of Religion at the Interdenominational Theological Center, and her Ph.D. in religion from Rice University. She also completed a bioethics training and research fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Erica Lord

MULTIMEDIA ARTIST AT THE INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO

Multimedia artist Erica Lord, who is an enrolled member of Nenana Native Village, presented her work “The Codes We Carry: Beads as DNA Data” in the Staniar Gallery. Lord’s interdisciplinary art draws on her experience growing up between Alaska and Michigan and her mixed-race cultural identity drawn from Athabaskan, Iñupiat, Finnish, Swedish, Japanese, and English descent. Her exhibition and lecture for the Mudd series interrogated diseases that disproportionately impact Indigenous communities due to inadequate health care. She took computer-produced genetic sequencing images (DNA/RNA microarrays) of diseases, such as leukemia, cervical cancer, and tuberculosis and transformed those images into large-scale loom-woven and glass bead sculptures. In many ways, her work and the issues she raised regarding institutionalized health disparities that exist for Native people became the visual metaphor for the yearlong series on medical ethics as it touched on issues of access, justice, and inclusion within the medical system.

Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR OF LAW AT MITCHELL HAMLINE SCHOOL OF LAW AND FELLOW AT THE HASTINGS CENTER

Thaddeus Mason Pope’s whose talk, “Medical Aid in Dying: Expanding Access to Clinician Assisted Death,” examined how state and federal law can achieve value-concordant care, ensuring that people will get the healthcare they want and avoid healthcare (such as life-sustaining measures) they do not. Pope is a Hastings Center Fellow and a former Fulbright Scholar and Brocher Foundation Researcher. He has been a regular consultant to the American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying, an adviser to other endof-life advocacy organizations, a frequent testifier in legislative hearings on MAiD, and an expert witness in litigation concerning assisted dying.

Mara Buchbinder, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR AND VICE CHAIR OF SOCIAL MEDICINE, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY, AND CORE FACULTY IN THE CENTER FOR BIOETHICS, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

Medical anthropologist Buchbinder followed Thaddeus Mason Pope ’s presentation with her talk “Stories of Assisted Dying in America: New Narratives for Old Debates.” She discussed her anthropological research on the implementation of Vermont’s 2013 Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act. Her work helped illustrate several fine points, such as why upholding the “right to die” is very different from ensuring access to this life-ending procedure. Buchbinder’s research on Vermont’s act is also the basis for her recent book, “Scripting Death: Stories of Assisted Dying in America.”

Dr. Jim Withers

DR., FACP AND FOUNDER OF STREET MEDICINE INSTITUTE, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

A practicing physician in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dr. Jim Withers visited our campus to give the culminating talk for the Mudd Center’s year-long program on medical ethics. His talk, “Go to the People: Ethics and Access of Street Medicine,” investigated the development and necessity of the Street Medical Institute (SMI) he began decades ago in Pittsburgh. In 1992, Withers began making medical visits to the city’s homeless population, motivated by the desire to reach out and serve those who had been excluded from mainstream healthcare systems. Withers discovered that, due to a variety of external and internal barriers, many homeless individuals

Medical Aid in Dying Panel

While originally conceived of as a panel discussion, the event changed to a webinar due to inclement weather, which shut down the university. Though the format was different, the content was largely the same. It was an opportunity to investigate ethical concerns related to Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD), a practice that allows a terminally ill patient access to lethal medication that can be self-administered to hasten a patient’s death. Only authorized in 10 states and Washington D.C., it is a highly contentious issue. Some see MAiD as a “good death” in that it is a humane way to avoid unnecessary suffering, and others see it as a dangerous intervention that has the risk of being abused, endangering vulnerable groups of people. There is no easy answer when it comes to MAiD, but the webinar featured three wellinformed perspectives to help us think through the deep ethical issues.

Moderated by Kerry Egan ’95, hospice chaplain and author, the webinar featured Terri Laws, associate professor of African and African American studies at the University of Michigan — Dearborn; Thaddeus Mason Pope, professor of law at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law; and Mara Buchbinder, professor and vice chair of social medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

were unable to access or navigate existing healthcare services and needed a different care model that would meet patients where they were.

Withers developed a system of care that emphasized compassion, creativity, and collaboration, which led to him founding SMI as a non-profit organization in 2009. This powerful example of applied ethics has impacted numerous medical school programs, which now offer training in street medicine. There is currently a global network of Street Medicine programs in 85 cities across 15 countries and five continents, and the initiative continues to grow.

FELLOWS AND STUDENT ACTIVITY

The Mudd Center for Ethics experimented with different types of gatherings and meetings throughout the year, including a pop-up café hosted once a semester (during the Fall and Winter Terms) at the former Lexington Coffee House. The café experiences provided a space for W&L students, faculty and staff, and Lexington community members to come together for coffee, cupcakes and loosely structured conversation around two themes from the year’s lecture series: healthcare and medical aid in dying.

The Mudd Center and the Native American Indigenous Cohort enjoyed their first collaborative project that centered around the work and visit of artist Erica Lord. We hosted a panel discussion to examine the Indian Health Services and related issues of health care practice and access among Native and Indigenous populations, which are central to Lord’s creative work.

Our two panelists were Lord, a multimedia artist at the Institute of American Indian Arts and an enrolled member of the Nenana Native Village, and Victoria Ferguson, the director of Solitude-Fraction House at Virginia Tech and a citizen of the Monacan Indian Nation. The panel was moderated by Joanne Harris, program manager for diversity, equity and inclusion at VCU Health,a medical center in Central Virginia

Students had some wonderful opportunities to meet with our guests over meals. Students in the pre-health program enjoyed lunch with anesthesiologist and critical care physician Dr. Adjoa Boateng Evans and asked her a number of questions about the medical field. A breakfast with bioethicist Carl Elliott also allowed a small group of law and undergraduate students to have a conversation about his training as a physician and how it led him to the field of medical ethics.

ERICA LORD HOLDS ALOFT ONE OF HER LOOM-WOVEN GLASS BEAD BURDEN BELTS, EXTENDING MORE THAN SIX FEET IN LENGTH. THE CREATION OF EACH BELT REQUIRES HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF METICULOUS WORK TO PRODUCE AN EXACT DUPLICATION OF THE GENETIC SEQUENCING IT REPRESENTS.

LEADERSHIP LAB

In May, the Mudd Center for Ethics launched the Leadership Lab, an initiative devoted to fostering thoughtful and rigorous inquiry into the characteristics of ethical and responsible leadership across disciplines and professions and within a globalized world. This objective resonates deeply with both the mission of the Mudd Center and that of the university. Indeed, part of Washington and Lee’s mission statement reads: “Graduates will be prepared for lifelong learning, personal achievement, responsible leadership, service to others, and engaged citizenship in a global and diverse society.” The Leadership Lab will offer focused lectures and discussions that will contribute toward creating a touchstone for ethical leadership so that its defining qualities are never far from our minds and hearts.

We asked Ken Ruscio ’76, W&L president emeritus to launch this new program. Ruscio served as the president of Washington and Lee University from 2006-2016. In 2016, the W&L Board of Trustees recognized Ruscio’s decade of leadership by naming the Ruscio Center for Global Learning in his honor. This honor also reflected his lifelong work of studying the global scope of democracy, democratic theory, political leadership, trust, and public policy.

At the inaugural Leadership Lab, Ruscio gave a thought-provoking talk full of beautiful remembrances, insightful lessons, and rich history (not to mention a good dash of humor). Titled “Reflections on Ethical Leadership in Contemporary Times,” Ruscio posited that two qualities — humility and trust — serve to distinguish leadership from the mere use of power. These foundational characteristics of ethical leadership, he explained, are informed and sustained by notions of the collective good and communal responsibility. He inspired us to think about what it is to lead with not only deep intelligence but also humility, hope, and empathy.

More than 90 people attended Ruscio’s lunchtime lecture. Many were from the W&L community, but there were numerous individuals from the wider community, including the city’s chief of police, the mayor of Lexington, and previous trustees of the university, as well as citizens of Lexington. Few people could draw such an audience in the middle of a workday in May! Through his talk, we also saw the full fruition of one of the Mudd Center’s goals for the year: to create programming that would bring together the communities of larger Lexington and W&L.

Mudd looks forward to bringing a few guests to campus over the academic year 2025-26 to continue this inquiry. ■

MUDD UNDERGRADUATE ETHICS JOURNAL AND CONFERENCE

The 10th anniversary edition of the Mudd Undergraduate Journal of Ethics (MUJE) marked the journal’s new manifestation as an online, interdisciplinary publication examining ethical concerns from a wide range of disciplines. In the past, the journal featured papers presented at an annual undergraduate conference once hosted at W&L. Since the pandemic, the conference has moved to a virtual experience. After the 2024 conference, the Mudd team regrouped and considered how we might reinvigorate and reimagine the journal experience. From those conversations, and under the guidance of the 2023-25 Mudd Center for Ethics Postdoctoral Fellow, Rachel Levit Ades, a new vision of an interdisciplinary journal emerged.

MUJE remains a rigorous peerreviewed undergraduate journal showcasing accepted pieces from students the world over, but this anniversary edition takes the journal to new heights. In addition to highlevel academic papers that go through an intensive process of revision, the journal now also features news reports related to the Mudd Center’s yearlong lecture series as well as creative work

that investigates ethical questions and concerns. Indeed, MUJE is committed to highlighting a range of intellectual and creative perspectives in relation to ethical discussions that deeply affect our lives. This edition features visual art and poetry as well as several academic papers. The topics for these papers and images relate to life-saving stem-cell transplants, psychological coercion, organ donation, and paid maternity leave.

The undergraduate students who both contribute to the journal and help produce it are dedicated to fostering exciting intellectual exchange, creative engagement, and critical thinking outside the classroom. They are outstanding students in whom Roger Mudd ’50 would have found great resonance and hope. We would like to spotlight one of these incredible students, Amanda Tan ’26, who has worked on MUJE since she was a first-year here at W&L. This past year, she served as the editor in chief, and we are grateful she will take on this role again in her senior year. We asked her to write a little bit about herself so that those who connect with the Mudd Center may gain a better sense of the people behind it. ■

The past three years with the Mudd Undergraduate Journal of Ethics have contributed to my growth in all facets of life. My time at W&L began with meeting my field hockey teammates during preseason and bonding with fellow athletes. The instant feeling of family became increasingly apparent as I found myself participating in other organizations such as the Ethics Bowl Team. Throughout my time with the Mudd Journal, beginning as a member of the editorial board, associate editor, and now having the privilege of serving as editor-inchief, I have formed impactful relationships that will always reflect the mentorship and support interwoven through our campus community. As a cognitive and behavioral science and business double major, the interdisciplinary aspect of the Mudd Journal in embracing ethics, art, poetry, philosophy, and medicine promotes exploration of any curiosity, interest, and passion. Contributing to this discussion space and inclusive academic environment has shaped my voice as a leader and communicator. The breadth of knowledge and skills I have learned and continue to develop will always extend to academics, athletics, and every piece of my W&L experience and beyond.

A NATURAL SEGUE

RETIRED HOSPICE PHYSICIAN RALPH CALDRONEY ’72 TURNS A PLANNED GIFT INTO IMMEDIATE IMPACT WITH NEW LECTURE SPONSORSHIP

When Ralph Caldroney ’72 retired from his internal medicine practice in Lexington, Kentucky, he and his wife, Susan, decided to relocate to the Shenandoah Valley. The Lexington, Virginia, area was a natural fit, and they moved to Buena Vista in 2014. Caldroney quickly became involved in the Rockbridge County community, eventually serving as medical director for Hospice of Rockbridge County. He also found himself drawn back to Washington and Lee University, occasionally speaking to the medical ethics class taught by associate professor of philosophy Erin Taylor and attending lectures sponsored by the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics.

“WE’RE SO GRATEFUL FOR HIS PHILANTHROPY AND FOR THE GIFT OF GETTING TO KNOW THE CALDRONEYS. SUSAN AND RALPH ARE SUCH GOOD PEOPLE — ENGAGED AND DEDICATED TO THE COMMUNITY.”

MELISSA KERIN

Caldroney attended several Mudd Center lectures during this past year’s series: “How We Live and Die: Stories, Values and Communities.” He found the W&L students with whom he interacted to be smart, perceptive, and inquisitive and is pleased the center welcomes participation by community members.

Impressed by the range and quality of the Mudd Center presentations, Caldroney previously committed a $250,000 planned gift to the center for his 50th reunion gift in 2022. However, after such a positive experience attending this year’s lecture series, he decided to fasttrack his support. For each of the next five years, his $5,000 per-year gift will sponsor an annual lecture. “It was a natural segue,” Caldroney says. “This way, I can enjoy some of the fruits of my labor while I am still alive.”

“When Ralph mentioned his interest in supporting an annual lecture for the next five years, I was delighted but also surprised,” says Mudd Center Director Melissa Kerin. “I didn’t realize he had a long history with the Mudd Center and felt such a commitment to its programing.” While Kerin and Caldroney often shared brief exchanges after the center’s events he attended during the 2024-2025 program, there was a qualitative change in their discussions after the panel: “How We Die: A Panel Investing the Ethics of Medial Aid in Dying.”

This event was intended to be an in-person panel with participants who shared a spectrum of perspectives on medical aid in dying — a contentious practice that is currently only legal in 10 states and Washington, D.C. Due to a snowstorm that hit Lexington on the day of the panel, the Mudd Center team pivoted and held the event as a webinar. Given the charged content around what is often termed “physician-assisted suicide,” the Mudd Center also provided an in-person discussion the day after the webinar, which Caldroney attended.

“In a very generous way, he really helped navigate the discussion,” said Kerin. “He offered a seasoned and sensitive sensibility about hospice/palliative care versus medically aided dying. At the time, I didn’t realize he was once the physician at ConnectionsPlus Healthcare + Hospice of Rockbridge County, but clearly, he had a great deal of experience and insight to share. Students asked a lot of questions that he could engage in thoughtful ways. For me, that event became the turning point in Ralph’s commitment to the center.”

After that session, Caldroney approached Kerin to express how pleased he was with the program. He knew it was a difficult topic, and the experience motivated him to provide support in a more immediate way than through a planned gift.

Caldroney soon followed up with Kerin to formalize his commitment. “When he came to my office to discuss it, he was in socks and a dirty T-shirt. It turned out he had been in the middle of roofing a Habitat for Humanity house,” Kerin recalls. The spirit of that meeting matched Caldroney’s down-to-earth, generous nature. “It was the epitome of generosity; he was taking a few minutes away from his volunteer work to donate money to an ethics center.”

Caldroney made the gift with no strings attached. “I don’t want to be directly involved in selecting topics or speakers. I want to stand at arm’s length,” he says.

A native of Newport News, Virginia, Caldroney attended W&L when students wore coats and ties to Saturday morning classes. After graduation, he attended the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. Susan Caldroney, a California native, attended Mary Baldwin College. After a brief return to California, she moved to Richmond, where she and Ralph met.

Caldroney continued his training at Medical University of South Carolina and the University of Florida in Gainesville before moving to Kentucky. He spent seven years on the teaching medical staff at University of Kentucky Medical Center, followed by more than 25 years in private practice. In addition to his practice, Caldroney served eight years in the Army Reserves, volunteering on Sept. 12, 2001, with deployments to Landstuhl, Germany; Camp Bucca in Iraq, and Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.

Although Caldoney has now retired, he has not stopped giving back to the community. He serves as president of the board of directors of ConnectionsPlus and on the boards of the Rockbridge Area Habitat for Humanity, Valley Program for Aging Services, and the Community Foundation for Rockbridge, Bath, and Alleghany counties.

According to Kerin, “Ralph commented when he made his gift that he hopes it will inspire others to follow suit. We’re so grateful for his philanthropy and for the gift of getting to know the Caldroneys. Susan and Ralph are such good people — engaged and dedicated to the community.” ■

MEET OUR STAFF

This summer Rachel Levit Ades, who has been our Mudd Postdoctoral Fellow 2023-25, has gone on to live and work in Sacramento, California. Rachel received her Ph.D. and B.A. in philosophy from Arizona State University and BA in philosophy from Carleton College. She brought to our center and students a focus on disability ethics and law. Her energy, collegial nature, and lively intellect will be sorely missed.

As we wish Levit Ades very well on her upcoming adventures, we are preparing for the arrival of our next Mudd Postdoctoral Fellow 2025-27. We’re very excited to extend a warm welcome to Daniel Ranweiler. With a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California at Los Angeles, Ranweiler works primarily on issues in moral, political, and legal philosophy. In his dissertation Ranweiler develops a Kantian theory of redemption in order to understand better related redressive practices (like blame, forgiveness, punishment, and legal pardon). Before graduate school Ranweiler worked as a financial analyst at BNY Mellon and as a corporate paralegal at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He holds an A.B. from Cornell University and has spent time studying in Germany.

We are thrilled to have Ranweiler join Mudd, to lead the undergraduate journal of ethics, engage with our students and programming, and to teach courses in the Philosophy Department.

Another important part of the Mudd team is senior Paige Gray ’26 who is majoring in neuroscience with a minor in archaeology. The Mudd Center has been fortunate enough to have had Gray as a student assistant for the last three years, though part of last year she was in Scotland on a semester abroad program.

When she’s not traveling the world, Paige conducts research in the Sleep Lab with Ryan Brindle. Additionally, she has engaged in cancer research at West Virginia University and Alzheimer’s research at Harvard Medical School/Boston Children’s Hospital (summer 2025). She currently serves as the vice president for student association for international learning and is a Lindley Wellness Center Fellow as well as a member of the TriBeta Biological Honor Society, LEAD, Club Swimming, Swing Dance Club, and Slavic Society. Paige also enjoys volunteering with Kathekon, the Brain Exercise Initiative, and Campus Kitchen.

END-OF-YEAR RECEPTION

In April, the Mudd Center hosted its first end-of-year gathering, which also marked the launch of the online edition of the Mudd Undergraduate Journal of Ethics (MUJE). The event brought together members of the Mudd Advisory Board, along with students, faculty, staff, and administrators.

Mudd Center for Ethics