RADFORD -- Radford University’s Criminal Justice Department will host the second annual panel of interdisciplinary ethics scholars at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 14 in Heth Lounge B.

RU’s Criminal Justice Club is a co-sponsor of the event.

The panel for “Doing The Right Thing: Personal Privacy and Identity Theft” will discuss the impact of personal privacy laws and identity theft on individuals, organizations and government. Panel participants include experts and scholars from the RU criminal justice, media, business, nursing, psychology and philosophy departments.

Joseph Boisineau, a dispute resolution specialist from the Virginia Department of Consumer Affairs in Richmond, will serve as the panel facilitator.

The inaugural ethics panel discussion held a year ago focused on ethics education on practitioners and “sparked a lively debate,” said Lucy Edwards Hochstein, an RU criminal justice professor. “I believe this year’s discussion will be even livelier. The topic will be interesting to the local community as well as our campus community.”

Identity theft remains among the top of consumer complaints reported to the Federal Trade Commission. FTC statistics estimate that almost 10 million Americans were victims of some sort of identity theft in 2006. 

The RU panel of experts includes Hochstein; Dan Davidson, chair of the Department of Accounting, Finance and Business Law; Sharon Hartline, chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies; Sarah Hastings, psychology professor; Kereen Mullenbach, professor of nursing; Helen Roybark, professor of accounting, finance and business law; and Joe Staniunas, special purpose faculty in media studies.

To learn more about the ethics panel discussion, contact Hochstein at 540-831-6163.