Staal, Love win Moral Purpose Award

What role does a liberal arts education play in creating a full life? Duke freshman Sophia Staal and UNC-Chapel Hill senior Darius Love provide answers in their Kenan Moral Purpose Award-winning essays, given to the best student papers on the topic from the two schools. Staal recounted the conversion that happened after she became a Division I varsity athlete, while Love reflected on how he learned to embrace difference during his four years in Chapel Hill.

Integrity report reaches across Duke

Integrity in Undergraduate Life at Duke University: A Report on the 2011 Survey follows up on surveys conducted in 1995, 2000 and 2005 and includes new questions on nonacademic subjects. Duke Student Government held its first ever faculty-student town hall meeting on April 4th to discuss its findings, covered by the Duke Chronicle. The Duke Chronicle also ran an article and editorial on the report, and Duke Today ran a piece on the report. The full report may be found here.

Ruth Grant discusses Strings Attached on WUNC’s The State of Things

KIE senior fellow Ruth Grant discussed how incentives affect good behavior and whether rewarding someone for being good devalues acts of goodness, the topic of her latest book, Strings Attached: The Ethics of Incentives, on WUNC’s The State of Things on 3/28. Listen or download audio here.

Kenan Summer Fellows Program applications due this Friday, March 30, at 5pm

What does it mean to live an ethical life? As many as six Duke undergrads will receive $5,000 to spend this summer exploring answers to the question through original research, community interventions, the arts, or other projects of their choosing. The application deadline is March 30. Full details may be found here.

Post-graduate fellowship in business, law, and human rights due April 2

Graduating Duke seniors: applications are due April 2 for a one-year fellowship that will support the U.N. Working Group on Business and Human Rights. Click here for more information about the position and application process and for a Duke Today piece on the job.

Kenan Moral Purpose Award essays due April 13

$1,000 will be given to two undergrads, one from Duke and one from UNC-Chapel Hill, for the best essay on the role a liberal arts education plays in a student’s moral development. Click here for more information.

New report on the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights released

Why do the world’s most revered companies end up embroiled in human rights abuses? What is to be done? “The U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Analysis and Implementation,” summarizes the current state of play in the field and contributes to the agenda going forward. The full report is available here.

Graduate Instructorship Award applications accepted until 2/17

KIE Advisory Board member Jimmy Soni (T’07) named managing editor of Huffington Post

Congratulations to KIE Advisory Board member and Duke alum Jimmy Soni on being named managing editor of the Huffington Post. Forbes and the Atlantic Wire have more information on his appointment.

Barak Richman comments on Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC decision

KIE Senior Fellow and Duke Professor of Law Barak D. Richman, who submitted a “friend of the court” brief urging the Supreme Court to take a narrow view of the ministerial exception in employment discrimination cases, commented on it in this Chronicle of Higher Education article.

FT columnist reviews Ruth Grant’s latest book

Financial Times columnist Christopher Cardwell reviews senior fellow Ruth Grant’s Strings Attached: Untangling the Ethics of Incentives, her latest book from Princeton University Press. Read the full review (free subscription required) here.

Advisory Board member William Galston featured on NPR’s Morning Edition

Pickus on Homeland Security

KIE Director Noah Pickus, Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security Director David Schanzer, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano discussed how to prevent terrorism while protecting Americans’ privacy and civil rights. The discussion, part of the Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecture series (full details here), was streamed live on Duke’s Ustream channel on October 20, 2011, and archived on Duke on Demand. Pickus and Schanzer also appeared live on the Office of News and Communication’s Office Hours series. An archived version of their discussion is available here.

Healy featured on National Review, Dow Jones websites

Need Funding? Apply for a KIE Campus Grant by November 1.

Need funding for your class, organization, conference, speaker, program, publication, or workshop? We provide up to $500 per grantee to support initiatives that promote ethical reflection, deliberation, and dialogue. Duke students, staff, and faculty are eligible to apply. More information is available here.

Law, KIE announce search for joint faculty hire

Duke University Law School and the Kenan Institute for Ethics have opened a search for a joint faculty hire in the field of international human rights law, policy, and institutions. More information is available in this PDF.

Bader Blogs about Google’s Motorola Deal on CSR Wire

Nonresident Senior Fellow and Kenan Advisory Board member Christine Bader sees Google’s deal to buy cellphone manufacturer Motorola as its biggest opportunity in corporate social responsibility to date—if Google commits to developing a smartphone free of conflict minerals. Read the full post here.

Sneak Peek: Kenan Distinguished Lecturer on Morning Edition

Paul Ekman, an internationally renowned psychologist whose work on facial expression formed the basis of TV’s “Lie to Me,” explained a pilot TSA screening program to NPR’s Morning Edition. He’ll discuss emotion, expression, and deceit in the Kenan Distinguished Lecture, which has been postponed until Spring 2012. Listen to the segment, read the transcript, or watch an excerpt of a PBS program describing his work here.

Pickus Discusses Immigration Enforcement with Christian Science Monitor

Kenan Institute for Ethics Director Noah Pickus was quoted in a recent article in The Christian Science Monitor. The article noted the record high numbers of undocumented immigrants being deported for drunk driving and other traffic violations. In it, Pickus points to competing understandings of how effective immigration policy should work among different groups. Read the full article here.

The Australian Interviews Sinnott-Armstrong on Lie Detection

The Australian newspaper interviewed Chauncey Stillman Professor in Practical Ethics Walter Sinnott-Armstrong about the promise of neuroscience to determine whether a person is lying or not. He argues that while the technology holds great potential, it is probably not yet reliable enough to be admissible in court. Read the full story here.

Graduate Fellowship Applications Due August 1

The Kenan Institute for Ethics invites graduate students at Duke to apply for a KIE Graduate Fellowship for 2011-2012 academic year. The Graduate Fellowships are meant to encourage students with research interests in the area of ethics, broadly construed, to meet and discuss their research with other fellows, KIE faculty, and visiting speakers over the course of the year. More info.

Balleisen Discusses “Responsive Regulation”

In a new paper, Edward Balleisen and how this approach might inform our understanding of the recent global financial crisis. Read the full paper here.

Rethinking Regulation Project Announces Graduate Fellows

The Rethinking Regulation Project has selected the recipients of the 2011-2012 Graduate Awards in Regulatory Governance. More info.

Institute Announces Recipients of Inaugural Public Ethics Grants

The Kenan Institute for Ethics is pleased to announce the recipients of the Institute’s grants in public ethics. A request for proposals was issued in the spring to Duke faculty. More info.

Kenan Moral Purpose Award

In honor of its 15th anniversary at Duke, the Institute has established an annual award to recognize an outstanding essay on moral purpose by a Duke undergraduate. Congratulations to Bethany Horstmann and Rae Dong, winners of $1000. Learn more.

Faculty Grants in Public Ethics

The Institute invites proposals from faculty undertaking study of an issue of significant ethical importance. Projects must have substantial ethical content AND must be geared toward some form of public scholarship, policy or practice. More info.

Graduate Awards in Regulatory Governance

The Institute’s Rethinking Regulation project provides grants for graduate and professional school students. These funds are available to assist students in funding the costs of research related to the analysis of regulatory governance, either for a pilot study that might turn into an eventual dissertation topic, or for an already formulated dissertation project. More info.

In Case You Missed It

In case you weren’t able to attend the screening of “Restrepo” on Tuesday night, you can listen to co-director Tim Hetherington discuss the film on WUNC’s “The State of Things.” Listen now.

2010′s 100 Most Influential

Congratulations to Senior Fellow and author of the Business Ethics Blog Chris MacDonald on being named one of 2010′s 100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics for the third year in a row!

Now Accepting Applications: Graduate Instructorship

The Kenan Instructorship in Ethics will be awarded to an advanced graduate or professional school student proposing to design and teach an ethics course in his or her area of expertise during the 2011-2012 academic year. All graduate and professional students at Duke are eligible to apply. More info. Deadline: March 14.

The Devil’s Dilemma

Team Kenan has launched a new blog — The Devil’s Dilemma, which will think through the ethical implications of unusual happenings from around the world and at Duke. Read about the ethics of gourmet ice, possum tossing, plastic surgery as an incentive for academic achievement, and more! http://bit.ly/tkdevil.

Funding Available

Grants of up to $500 are available to all members of the Duke community—students, faculty, and staff—to support initiatives that promote ethical or moral reflection, deliberation, and dialogue at Duke and beyond. Apply by February 15. Learn more.

Congratulations to our own “Thought Leader”

Congratulations to Senior Fellow Chris MacDonald on being named among the “Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior” by Trust Across America!

Ethics for Adversaries

Institute professor Wayne Norman and senior fellow Chris MacDonald have joined with colleagues and Duke students to write a new blog on adversarial ethics. A recent topic: The Simpsons perpetuating “The Competitiveness Myth.” Check it out!

Sex, Love and Celibacy

Are today’s college students only interested in random sexual hookups? Is dating outdated? Duke social scientists S. Philip Morgan and Suzanne Shanahan, the Institute’s associate director, get at the answers in one of the most comprehensive surveys of Duke students’ social lives ever conducted. Read the story in the new issue of Duke Magazine.

The Power of Failure

Institute Board member William Cohan connects our tolerance of the questionable morality of those on Wall Street with comments from President Brodhead on the culture of achievement. Read the story.

Congratulations to New Baldwin Scholars

Congratulations to Andrea Lewis and Grace Benson, two of the Institute’s Focus program participants who have been selected to participate in the Alice M. Baldwin Scholars Program for undergraduate women and leadership at Duke University.

Ethics in Action Now Available

The new issue of Ethics in Action is out! Read it online now, or sign up to receive the print version.

Bhutanese Refugee Project Update

Suzanne Shanahan discusses early findings and next steps for the Bhutanese Resettlement Project in the new issue of GIST from the Mill. Read more.

Academic Integrity in Schools

“The single most important factor affecting whether students cheat is their peers. There has to be a culture among students that cheating isn’t acceptable.” — Director Noah Pickus, on academic integrity in schools. Read more.

Gamesmanship in Sports

“[It's] socially mandated, non-cooperative behavior.” – Joe Heath describing how in sports, success does not depend on how well athletes play, but instead on how much better they are than their competitors, from the Bending the Rules: Gamesmanship in Sports panel discussion last week. Listen to the audio now.

Ethics Certificate Graduate Arrives in Bangkok

Ethics Certificate Program graduate Jessica So recently arrived in Bangkok. She is now living in the city and working for a legal advocacy organization dedicated to transforming the world on behalf of the poor. Jessica shares her experiences on her blog, “Bangkok Misadventures.”

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong “Office Hours” Friday, October 15

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong will discuss neuroscience, morality and the law, and take questions from online viewers during a live “Office Hours” webcast beginning at noon Friday, October 15, 2010. To ask a question, send an email to live@duke.edu, tweet with the tag #dukelive, or post a comment on the Duke University Live Ustream page on Facebook.

On WUNC: Poverty in NC

Listen to WUNC’s “The State of Things” interview with Bob Korstad, Jim Leloudis, and Rachel Seidman on the Moral Challenges of Poverty and Inequality.

Faculty Discuss Globalization of Sport

A panel of Duke faculty discussed how the rise of a world market in athletics not only provides an interesting perspective on globalization but also raises ethical challenges. Read more. Listen to the panel audio on iTunesU (video to come soon).

Poverty in America

Anirudh Krishna, a member of the Moral Challenges of Poverty and Inequality faculty colloquium, discusses rising poverty rates in America on NPR’s “Tell Me More.” Listen now.

New in the Occasional Paper Series

2010 graduate Yifan Wang examines the relationship between asylum seekers and local police in Dublin and offers recommendations for how to improve ongoing relations between the two. Read more.

Discover University Gets Attention in Dublin

Dublin People highlights the work of DukeEngage Dublin students and the Discover University program, a new collaboration between the Institute and the National College of Ireland. Read the story.

The Moral Challenges of Poverty

Poverty and Public Policy: “For those who envision a new movement to overcome the legacy of poverty and inequality, To Right These Wrongs makes an invaluable contribution.” Authors Bob Korstad and Jim Leloudis are leading a new project that seeks to change how we think about poverty in NC.

DukeEngage Dublin 2010

The 2010 DukeEngage Dublin participants are halfway through their summer civic engagement experience. Read their “Thoughts from Dublin” so far.

The Rightful Place?

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong weighs in on the rightful place of science. Watch the video now.

U.S. Immigration Policy: What’s Next?

Institute director Noah Pickus recently discussed how to wade through the emotional intensity and technical complexity of the current immigration debate as part of a panel on “U.S. Immigration Policy: What’s Next?” Watch the video now.

Stories from Nepal

One of the Institute’s two summer research-service teams just completed their last week of work in Nepal, where members divided their time between community engagement and community-based research. Read about their experiences.

Biological Sex & Ethics in Sports

Caster Semenya, the 800-meter world champion who was forced to undergo gender tests, has been allowed to return to women’s competitive track events by the sport’s governing body. Listen to our spring panel’s discussion of her case on iTunesU.

Why Boycotting BP is Unethical

Senior Fellow Chris MacDonald explains why a boycott of the company is not only futile but unethical as well. Read more.

What Big Business Can Learn from Frisbee

Institute Advisory Board member Christine Bader discusses what companies like Goldman Sachs, BP, and Massey can learn from the game of ultimate frisbee. Read her op-ed.

Corporate Responsibility as Restraint

How can corporations whose products have environmental or social costs act more responsibly? Senior Fellow Chris MacDonald argues that we should think about corporate responsibility in terms of restraint.