University of Dallas News: History Alumnus Heads National Catholic Bioethics Center
Joseph Meaney, President
The University of Dallas (UD) profiled alumnus Joseph Meaney, now president of the NCBC, in a July 2, 2020, article in the alumni magazine:
Meaney’s first bioethics class was at UD, with Professor Janet Smith. He also took Philosophy and the Ethical Life and a metaphysics course with her.
“UD gave me a taste for it,” he said. “I enjoyed the intellectual challenge of wrestling with ethics quandaries.
“UD in general was a very good, very wholesome environment for a Catholic; I was intellectually engaged, and I played tennis on the team all four years,” he said. “The tennis coach would laugh that he had never before UD had athletes discussing Plato and Aristotle on roadtrips. I remember in the midst of Groundhog festivities hearing discussions about Dante or other classical thinkers.
“It was a very unusual combination of intellectual, Catholic and just generally fun,” he added.