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The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University began
as the Kenan Ethics Program in the fall of 1995 with a five-year
grant from the William R. Kenan, Jr. Fund for Ethics. It
was born out of the innovative philanthropic vision of Frank
Hawkins Kenan, who, as a Trustee of the William R. Kenan,
Jr. Charitable Trust, spearheaded the creation of three
other Kenan Institutes in North Carolina: the Frank
Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Thomas
S. Kenan Institute for the Arts at the North Carolina
School of the Arts, and the William
R. Kenan, Jr. Institute for Engineering, Technology & Science
at North Carolina State University.
Concerned about what he perceived to be an increasing lack
of ethical standards in public affairs and in business life,
Frank Kenan sought to establish a university-based ethics
program that would support the study and teaching of ethics
and would develop and disseminate models for how institutions
and communities can nurture personal integrity, reflective
and productive citizenship, courage, and compassion. Under
the leadership of Duke University President Nannerl O. Keohane
and former Provost and Divinity School Dean Thomas A. Langford,
and with the help of an interdisciplinary group of Duke
faculty, this vision became the Kenan Ethics Program. It
was a source of great satisfaction to Frank Kenan that he
was able, at the end of his life, to witness the launching
of this initiative.
The founding document of the Kenan Ethics Program, drafted
in September 1995, states:
We understand that one of the fundamental needs of
contemporary American culture is to develop wisdom about
the meaning and application of ethics. We see this, therefore,
as a principal responsibility of every university, and
particularly of Duke University, with our historic commitment
to education of the spirit as well as the mind and body…
Ethical behavior encompasses basic values of community
and individual character. The formation of such values
requires embedding ethical teaching, learning and experience
into the daily practice of life. The Program in Ethics
will reach broadly through the university and beyond,
providing not only formal teaching but occasions for ethical
practice, not only reasonable intellectual constructs
but opportunities for commitment, not only the transmission
of received principles but also the encouragement of ethical
innovation in the face of new moral challenges posed by
a rapidly changing environment.
...At Duke we envision ...a program that permeates
the life of the University, from undergraduate to graduate
and professional schools, faculty, staff and employees.
Equally important, the emphasis of the Trust upon the
extension of ethical study and application into the general
life of the nearby community and the nation represents
a special opportunity. To reach beyond Duke University
will allow us not only to make a valuable contribution
to our society but to enrich the University as well.
Frank Kenan died on June 4, 1996, and was succeeded as
Chair of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Fund for Ethics by his
wife, Elizabeth Price Kenan. Professor Elizabeth Kiss became
the program's first director in January 1997, and in June
of 1997 the program established its offices in the West
Duke Building on the university's historic East Campus.
In its first five years, the Kenan Ethics Program launched
a number of significant initiatives, including:
A three-year pilot project, in collaboration with the First-Year
Writing Program, to infuse the first-year writing course
at Duke with the theme of Disagreement, Deliberation
and Community, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation. The
University Writing Program (UWP) now aims to improve
students' ability to discern and develop moral arguments
and to negotiate moral disagreements in ways that build
democratic community. A selection of the best writing to
come from this coursework is published annually in a journal
entitled Deliberations.
A focus on K-12 character education led to the development
of curriculum materials on a variety of character education
issues and created the annual North
Carolina Character Educators of the Year (NCCEY)
Awards Program to recognize the work that K-12 classroom
educators play in nurturing good character and civic engagement.
An exploratory dialogue with clinicians, theologians, researchers,
humanists, and philosophers on ethics and the new genetic
technologies has evolved into the Center
for Genome Ethics, Law and Policy (GELP), one of
five subcenters in Institute
for Genome Science and Policy, founded in 2001.
A series of visiting faculty appointments and initiatives
integrating ethics across the curriculum at Duke, supported
by the Kenan Ethics Program, helped fuel a university-wide
conversation about the importance of ethics. These activities
and the dialogue they generated were influential as the
University undertook a comprehensive revision of Duke's
undergraduate curriculum. Now, as part of The
Trinity Curriculum, all undergraduates must fulfill
a two-course Ethical
Inquiry requirement.
In July 1999, after a thorough review of the Program's
accomplishments, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust
committed to long-term support, establishing a $10 million
endowment managed by the William R. Kenan, Jr. Fund for
Ethics. In recognition of this change, the Kenan Ethics
Program became the Kenan Institute for Ethics. The Institute
celebrated its new status in January 2001.
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