The NYU Center for Bioethics was launched in September 2007 with a Chair endowed by Dr. Arthur Zitrin, who for over 40 years was a prime mover in ethics education at the NYU Medical Center. Along with further support from the Faculty of Arts and Science, the Center was founded with the aim of offering an M.A. in Bioethics that combined medical and environmental ethics within a diverse academic and urban setting taught by faculty throughout the University, as well as to conduct research in the field and sponsor public activities throughout the community. The Center’s students are drawn from a multitude of different backgrounds, countries, and career paths.
The Center’s Master of Arts degree program, Bioethics: Life, Health, and Environment, promotes a broad conception of bioethics encompassing both medical and environmental ethics through conferences, workshops, public lectures, and graduate courses. Based in the School of Global Public Health, the MA Bioethics program at NYU draws upon courses, faculty affiliates and programs in the schools of Medicine, Law, Education, and Public Service, among others. Students may choose to follow a health track or an environment track, but in both cases receive training in an extensive range of bioethics theories and applications that pertain to today’s most challenging scientific and ethical issues. Students are each assigned an adviser who provides them with individual guidance throughout their time in the program.