Upcoming Events

• July 24-26: EBF Summer Institute - Patient-Directed Dying: Ethics and Care at Life's Ending
  Conference: Seattle University
• October 10-12: Fall Conference - Understanding Violence: Tools for Educators
  Conference: Seattle University

Ernest Becker Summer Institute, July 24-26

Register online now! Registration includes a ticket to Charisma, starring Hope Wechkin. This special live comedy drama program is part of the EBF Summer Institute, and is also open to the public. You can purchase additional tickets here for Charisma, starring Hope Wechkin, and for the afterparties on the evening of the 25th and 26th. Ticket prices are $15 regular and $12 for seniors and students. Dr. Wechkin and Charisma have been featured in the Seattle Times. The fundraiser Afterparty is a chance to meet the creators of the program -- Hope Wechkin, Margaret Shafer and director Joanne Ward. Purchase your tickets below. We look forward to seeing you! All are benefit performances for the EBF, so encourage your family and friends to buy a ticket for any of the following:

July 24-26: The Ernest Becker Summer Institute

Patient Directed Dying: Ethics and Care at Life's Ending

Jointly sponsored by the Ernest Becker Foundation, the School of Theology and Ministry at Seattle University, and the Washington State Hospice and Palliative Care Organization

With hospice care firmly established as an appropriate mode of attending to the dying and palliative care expanding end of life treatment, this Institute seeks to provide a timely opportunity for helping professions to explore the implications of Becker's thought for care of the dying and deepen our understanding of the spiritual needs and resources of the dying in the midst of the emotional and medical complexity of life's ending.

The theme of this Institute lies in finding ways to strengthen patient agency and direction at life's ending. An individual has agency when an action is fully his or her own. This focus on agency is not unlike the concern for patient autonomy in the medical management of death. The aim of this institute is to examine medical, spiritual, and ethical practices that will strengthen patient direction and make it possible to live as fully as possible until death. The Institute will begin by considering human agency in general before moving to "patient directed living until we die" and finally "patient directed dying," personal agency when and how we die.

This Institute is intended for hospital and hospice chaplains, physicians, nurses, social workers, pastoral counselors, hospice workers, parish clergy, therapists and others interested in strengthening the spiritual dimensions of care at the time of death.

October 10-12: The Ernest Becker Fall Conference at Seattle University

EBF Fall Conference: Becker-based Tools for Educators

Last year's eye-opening Fall conference on Understanding Violence: Tools for Educators and Communities left us wanting more. The focus of this year's annual conference (Oct 10-12 at Seattle U) expands on the theme, featuring educators from all over who are using Becker to help their students understand and reduce violence, and see cultural criticism at work. We have an incredible group of educators coming to present how they bring Becker to their students. Sheldon Solomon, Greg Bennick, and Jim Hernandez will be back, and new voices, from Bethlehem, PA, Louisville, Ky, and Thunder Bay, ON, will also share their work.

In this conference we want to not only share what these innovative educators are doing, but also to promote the use and continued development of Becker-based materials and concepts in the classroom. These are tools for helping students develop critical thinking skills and ways for understanding and reducing violence in their lives and in the world. Our goal is to build and share a toolkit of Becker-based learning activities and materials that all educators can easily access through our website. Our first tool, now online, is Neiad Ammary's set of discussion questions for each chapter of Denial of Death. We have posted these questions on the EBF website in our brand new "tools for teaching" section.

We're looking for more! If you have designed or want to design any learning activities or materials that could help people relate Becker's work to their studies and/or their own lives, please let us know. Sound exciting? Register now for the Fall Conference.

EBF website supports chapters

The Ernest Becker Foundation wants to help you publicize your local Ernest Becker chapter and Web site. We will list you on our EBF Chapters page and provide links to your Web pages. If you would like technical information on developing a Web site, please email Neil Elgee.