About the Pierce Institute

The Pierce Institute for Leadership and Community Engagement is a recent development at Oxford College, but the seeds of its growth were sown more than 30 years ago.

The Pierce endowment originally was established in 1976 with a generous gift from the D. Abbott Turner family. William Turner and the other members of the Turner family endowed the Pierce Chair in Religion in honor of two of their ancestors: Dr. Lovick Pierce and Bishop George Foster Pierce. Bishop Pierce, William Turner's great-great-grandfather, was president of Emory College from 1848 to 1854. In the years since the original gift, the endowment supported the activities of the Pierce Professor of Religion and the Pierce Program in Religion before its expansion into the Pierce Institute for Leadership and Community Engagement in 2006.

All the Pierce Institute programs must operate within one or more of the following rubrics:

• Connect students' intellectual, spiritual, and leadership capacities for positive civic engagement.
• Promote the intellectual rigor and moral virtues that engender an ethic of concern for justice and desire for reconciliation.
• Encourage civic engagement and social responsibility through service learning and community service.
• Promote fundamental principles and practices associated with ethical leadership skills and collaborative decision making.
• Support courses and programs that emphasize practical ethics, diverse leadership dynamics, and service learning.

For more information about the Pierce Institute, contact:
Andrea M. Plater, Administrative Assistant
770.784.8379, aplater@emory.edu