Enrollment Information
1-800-422-4LLU (1-800-422-4558)
MEET THE ASSOCIATE DEAN: Roy Branson, Ph.D.
Raised in Cairo, Egypt, Beirut Lebanon, and New York City, within an Adventist minister's home, Branson graduated from Atlantic Union College. He then received M.A. degrees in religion from Andrews University and in English from the University of Chicago, followed by a PhD in religious ethics from Harvard University.
To his present administrative responsibilities, Roy Branson brings a rich experience of innovation. He founded and edited for over two decades, Spectrum, the Adventist journal of ideas. At the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, he established the ethics program.. His students went in to earn doctorates in ethics, theology, and American Christianity at universities, such as Chicago, Claremont, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, and Yale. Many are professors in Adventist schools, including several at Loma Linda University.
At the time that it was creating the new field of bioethics, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics invited Branson to join the Institute as a Senior Research Scholar. Branson also served on the staff of a newly created national commission recommending ethical guidelines for conducting biomedical and behavioral research. In the nation's capitol, Branson founded several advocacy groups that testified before Congress, including a religious coalition advocating protection of Vietnamese refuges from piracy attacks, and the first interreligious coalition urging the U.S. Congress to adopt national tobacco control policy. Branson founded and directed the Center for Law and Public Policy that encouraged as many as sixty students a year to study pre-law at Columbia Union College; many proceeded to complete degrees at law schools such as Georgetown, Harvard and William and Lee
To his teaching responsibilities in ethics and in Adventist heritage, Branson draws on books he has edited and on his publications in volumes, such as the Encyclopedia of Bioethics, the Dictionary of Christian Ethics, On Moral Medicine: Theological Perspectives in Medical Ethics; and in a variety of journals, including the Journal of Dental Research, the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, the Journal of Religious Studies, and Judaism.