Formula
The St. André International Center for Ethics and Integrity regularly offers intensive applied ethics seminars on a variety of themes. The seminars are designed to foster exchange of ideas, sustained discussions, and intellectual stimulation. We achieve this objective via three complementary strategies:
First, we limit the number of participants to 20. This assures that by the end of the arrival day, everybody knows everybody, we are all on a first name basis, and ready to engage one another. We also do our utmost to attract a broad diversity of participants, representing different disciplines, professions, nationalities, experiences, and still other backgrounds that can enrich the discussions. Seminars are held in English, but based on past seminars, we can assure potential participants that fluency in English is definitely not required. Indeed, our participants are always easy-going, ready to assist one another with any language issues, and eager to incorporate different linguistic insights .
Secondly, we offer a program that is rich in content but leaves ample time for exchange, discussion and debate. Lectures by invited experts are alternated with contributions by participants, discussion sessions, movies or documentaries, and time for individual meetings. We further enrich these more traditional academic sessions with organized excursions to cultural sites that are directly relevant to the seminar theme, followed by shared reflections on any new insights thus gained.
Last but certainly not least, we also seek to nurture well-being more holistically. The historic and/or natural beauty of our conference sites, cultural patrimony and culinary delights, as well as time for reflection, spiritual enrichment and developing new friendships, are key ingredients of the program.
Seminars cover a variety of themes. Past seminars have included: Ethics Educators Workshop (2023), Bioethics Colloquium (2023 and 2024), Health care ethics – Catholic perspectives (2023), and our Rome-based seminar on Ethics of End-of-Life Care – Contributions from the Arts and Humanities (2024 and 2025).
Location
The St. André Center is international, and we try to realize this aspect of our identity by also organizing activities in different locations. Most of our seminars have taken place in the Provence Occitane at the conference center Notre Dame de Grace in Rochefort-du-Gard. Starting in 2024, we also offer an annual winter seminar in Rome. We are exploring additional sites for future seminars, including in Egypt and the USA.
The conference site in Rochefort-du-Gard
Experiences from past participants
“The seminar did an exceptional job in blending formal presentations with diverse opportunities for informal discussions.“ (philosopher)
“My ethical discernment about future career and vocation began last year and continued during the teacher workshop and the end-of-life care seminar.” (geriatrician-ethicist)
“It was a particularly insightful experience for me as a medical student to learn how colleagues further ahead in their medical careers are incorporating ethics into their careers.” (medical student)
“An amazing variety of people who shared knowledge, ideas and hopes so all could learn.” (physician)
“What a tremendous week of professional growth in an international yet warmly collegial context!“ (physician-ethicist)
