NEW YORK — Christopher Crosby is one of 21 journalism students and young journalists chosen by Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics to participate in a two-week program in Europe beginning May 22.

The program uses the conduct of reporters and other media professionals in Nazi Germany as a launching point for an intensive course of study on contemporary journalism ethics.

Crosby is a graduate of Leavitt Area High School in Turner and currently attends the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. He received his bachelor’s degree in international affairs in 2011 from the University of Maine. After working at a brewery for two summers, he was a reporter at the Sun Journal for two years, where he covered politics, government and the court system of western Maine.

Now in its seventh year, the program is an international program for students in five professional disciplines (business, journalism, law, medicine and religion) designed to address contemporary ethical issues in their chosen fields through a unique historical lens.

The program is predicated upon the power of place and the firsthand experience of visiting Auschwitz and other historic sites associated with the Holocaust, where fellows consider how to apply the lessons of history to the ethical challenges they will confront in their professions.

The program examines the roles played by professionals in business, journalism, law, medicine and the clergy in Nazi Germany, underscoring that the moral codes governing these essential professions can break down or be distorted with devastating consequences.

Over the course of 12 days, fellows will attend lectures with a range of guest speakers and participate in seminars run by leading scholars who serve as program faculty.

The 2016 program will be led by Ari Goldman, professor and director of the Scripps Howard Program in Religion, Journalism and the Spiritual Life at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; and Lonnie Isabel, senior lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the former deputy managing editor of Newsday.

All program costs are covered, including transatlantic and European travel, food and lodging. 

Fellows will begin their program in Berlin. The program includes museum visits, meeting with a Holocaust survivor and attending educational workshops at the House of the Wannsee Conference, the site where representatives of state and Nazi Party agencies convened in 1942 to discuss and coordinate plans for the Nazis’ “Final Solution.”

The fellows then travel to O?wi?cim, Poland, the town the Germans called Auschwitz, where they will work with the educational staff at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. Sessions devoted to contemporary ethics will take place in seminar rooms at Auschwitz and at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, one of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious universities. The final leg of the trip will be held in Krakow, Poland, where fellows will explore the city’s rich Catholic, Jewish and Polish history.

Upon completion, each fellow will submit a final written essay focused on a contemporary ethical issue of their choice. Select essays will be published in the annual FASPE Journal, which showcases essays in all five disciplines.

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