Sometimes I’m really not sure what to say in this public space—I hope I give an interesting viewpoint on subjects here and there—but if nothing else I can pass on the wisdom of others. If you haven’t seen this page on the Kenan website, go check out our Faculty and Fellows blogs.  The talented and creative faculty and senior fellows who are associated with the Institute contribute to a number of public forums, offering an informal way to engage with their areas of expertise.

Chris MacDonald, a KIE Nonresident Senior Fellow on post in Toronto leading the Jim Pattison Ethical Leadership Education & Research Program at Ryerson University, keeps us informed on intriguing questions in business ethics with his Business Ethics Blog, which also gets picked up by Canadian Business. In clear-cut fashion, he explains some key concepts in business ethics using examples that resonate with the current public conscience. Hurricane Sandy had a startling effect on all of us, leading me to pay close attention to his assessment of what businesses can actually do in response to global warming. He is a strong voice for corporate social responsibility, which also grounds much of the writing of KIE Nonresident Senior Fellow Christine Bader. A contributor to the Huffington Post blog, among other things, her most recent endeavor has been the apparently difficult task of finding practitioners of corporate social responsibility in the baby market. Their topics are both accessible and informative in a way that has given me access to information that would otherwise probably intimidate me.

Meanwhile two of our Senior Fellows, Luke Bretherton and Ebrahim Moosa, each keep a blog that bridges religion and public life. The very name of Moosa’s blog, Dihliz, illustrates that bridge. He explains that dihliz is the Arabic word that “describes the space between the house proper and the street,” and that “this in-between space also describes [his] own existential position between several antimonies.” I think to name that space where the tough exploration takes place is helpful. It is a deliberate venue for idea sharing and ethical exploration of issues that sometimes may seem at odds. I think that goes for any of these blogs, and I appreciate the synthesis. Bretherton and Moosa are spearheading a new initiative on religion in the public sphere, a collaboration between Kenan, the Divinity School, and Trinity College of Arts and Sciences. Bretherton describes the spring graduate seminar that will be the focal point of the initiative in one of his posts on Christianity and Contemporary Politics. I’m sure it will also be an exploration of the space in-between and I hope that some of the dialogue makes its way to their blogs.

The list could go on, of course. Kieran Healy is particularly creative with his sociological commentary, and Dan Ariely to me is one of the most entertaining sources of both knowledge and informed distraction on the internet. Yesterday I stumbled upon Ariely’s post about the Department of Defense’s Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure—for any students still toiling through exam week, beware of this 162 page time suck of humor!

Being at a university, surrounded by expert voices and opinions, is a humbling yet stimulating experience. It may seem overwhelming to try to take in the constant stream of information sharing.  It is, in fact, impossible. I guess casual perusal is a ubiquitous habit on the internet, but with no direction I often just feel lost. I’ve found university aggregates like our faculty blogs and DukeToday to be new targeted sources of knowledge that I can rely on and process more easily.  So as we head into the holiday break, enjoy browsing!

Does this look like your typical Monday night? I’m a music lover and am at shows quite often, but it was a welcome surprise to jam out the way I did last night. Especially because I was helping facilitate a conference on deforestation in Madagascar co-hosted by the Kenan Institute for Ethics and the Duke Lemur Center. A quick look at the conference schedule shows that we had a full day of engagement. But throw in some creative planning and Malagasy musician Razia Said, and you get the perfect way to conclude a conference and liven up a Monday night.

The symposium was organized by the Duke Human Rights Center at KIE, and the Duke Lemur Center, and was one of the first major events with funding from the Duke Africa Initiative. Lou Brown’s FOCUS class used Madagascar as a case study for examining globalization and corporate social responsibility from an anthropological perspective, and contributed extensively to the planning for the event. Researchers and practitioners in fields from conservation ecology to economics to law were brought together as speakers for the panels. Because of these various angles by which the issue of deforestation was approached, the experts that were involved as well as conference attendees such as graduate students in related fields could gain from the synthesis of ideas that took place. For some, that meant grappling with challenges to their beliefs. The importance of lemurs and biodiversity was explicitly juxtaposed with the importance of maintaining livelihood and dignity for the human inhabitants of Madagascar, which made for a more complicated, richer discussion. It was a truly multilateral approach to education and research sharing.

I think one of the things Kenan does best is act as a moderator and synthesizer for engagement in diverse fields. We try to take an idea, involve multiple partners with multiple viewpoints, and broaden the perspectives of all involved.

And if your inclination is that an academic conference at Duke must be a stiff crowd, then we can broaden your perspective on that as well! The spirit of camaraderie from the day followed the crowd into Duke Coffeehouse, where Razia and her band gave us inspiration and a call to action. In another iteration of our “think and do” model, Monday’s Madagascar conference illustrated that sometimes a healthy process may be to think and dance!

Last week I shared some thoughts about the value of creative representation for awareness and education. Documentary photography and performance was the focus, but we could certainly expand the realm of creativity. Coming from a tradition of Southern matriarchs who spend quality time in the kitchen, I very much think of food as an expression of creativity and culture.

This weekend I attended an event that illustrated how food can be used as an educational tool, in a way much like the photographic essays we display in our hallway. The Transplanting Traditions Community Farm hosted an evening at Vimala’s Curryblossom Café with a traditional Karen Burmese meal and a presentation about refugee camp life in Thailand and resettlement here in the Triangle.

This Chapel Hill area farm hosts 26 ethnic Karen refugee families from Burma in a sustainable farming operation that melds Karen agricultural traditions with techniques helpful in North Carolina. It is also meant to be a catalyst for some families to eventually start their own independent farms. If anyone is looking for a good CSA box, I’ve heard from a colleague that theirs is fabulous!

I knew from the monologues and magazine created by our DukeImmerse students last spring that a difficulty for Bhutanese refugees in Nepal is the change from a predominantly agrarian culture to a camp where there is little opportunity to grow and prepare their own food. Some refugees find ways to tend small plots in the camps, and of course the food aid that is provided has to be prepared in some way, but options are limited. I learned Sunday that Burmese refugees struggle with this same loss of agragrian lifestyle, and that it is often compounded by the resettlement process. The community farm is, then, a valuable and comforting enclave in the midst of adjusting to a new home that is so different in so many ways.

At the event, my friends and I were greeted with the cozy atmosphere of Vimala’s courtyard packed with people holding steaming plates of food and sipping hibiscus tea. As I went down the buffet line, each serving was a lesson in colors and scents and eventually, new tastes. I meant to take a picture of the beautiful expression that was on my plate, but remembered right as I was scraping the bottom of my bowl of pumpkin curry soup. What I do have as an illustration, though, is the photo documentary project that was displayed, showing the bounty of the farm and the people contributing to it…sounds like a familiar concept, doesn’t it?!

I think it’s safe to say people are easily drawn by the promise of a good meal, especially with the backing of Vimala Rajendran, an institution in Chapel Hill (If you don’t know about her philosophy, it’s worth a look. Deeply committed to sustainability, community, and food security, her motto is, When Vimala cooks, everybody eats!) For this event, the preparing and serving of a meal drew both the resettled Karen community as well as the broader local community together to eat, learn, and enjoy a cultural exchange.

Happy Halloween from the Kenan Institute! I’ve always been a fan of pumpkin carving, but I’m not sure I had ever thought of it as an ethical activity. Well, we say we promote moral reflection around here, so that’s just what we did for our office pumpkin carving contest. We were tasked with creating the most ethical pumpkin! Whether arm deep in pumpkin gunk or working magic with duct tape and a set of sharpies, we all had some time to reflect on how to portray a moral character. Emily Sparrow the pirate pumpkin was advocating against music piracy. Pat the Ethical Pumpkin revealed a different side of himself depending on which angle you looked–reminding us that discerning the right thing to do requires examining an issue (or pumpkin) from multiple sides.  PumKIEn displayed the Kenan logo and described herself as putting in the hours to make the world a more ethical place. These are just a few examples of the fun and creative ethical pumpkins my colleagues came up with, and it makes me appreciate being a part of a place where, as another pumpkin aptly put it, ethics is (seriously) everywhere (including pumpkins)!

  Kenan’s FOCUS Cluster: Ethics, Leadership, and Global Citizenship acted as judges for our ethical pumpkin carving contest (a little healthy competition certainly drives creativity, right?!).  Here is a closeup of the winner, Maurice.  He is having a moral quandary.  Shouldn’t we all every now and then?

I was introduced to the hidden delight of Saxapahaw, North Carolina last fall when some friends organized a canoe trip down the Haw River. The Haw River Canoe and Kayak Company took us a few miles upriver, we spent a gorgeous Fall afternoon paddling back downstream, and ended up at the Saxapahaw Rivermill, the central hub of the town. Since the Saxapahaw Cotton Mill was originally built in the 1840s, it’s fair to say that the river mill has long been the central hub of town. What’s different now, however, is that it is filled with upscale lofts, a rustic general store that happens to serve up seriously gourmet offerings (the New York Times agrees), and the latest addition, a state of the art music venue called the Haw River Ballroom.

I knew from my own experience that Saxapahaw was receiving increasing hype, but what I didn’t know until a Duke Magazine article highlighted it recently, was the full story of its revitalization, and the connections to Duke. It has been the Jordan family, with three generations of Duke alumni, that has overseen the overhaul from a formerly prospering but eventually defunct textile mill to a thriving village of art and local commerce.

Mac Jordan, the most recent Duke grad, applied knowledge developed at Duke—from a Center for Documentary Studies photography project to a public policy major—to a specific project that he felt passionate about, the revitalization of his home town. Sounds like a good model for Duke’s emphasis on civic engagement and practice oriented education if you ask me! He has also collaborated with others invested in Saxapahaw’s growth to spur innovation.  It has certainly worked.

Perhaps what I love best about Saxapahaw’s revival story is the atmosphere it has so comfortably created, a place where, as Mac Jordan jokes, “a bunch of rednecks and hippies [are] all mixed together.” As a product of small-town North Carolina myself, I appreciate the deliberate emphasis on the cultural heritage of the place. It seems that long-time locals are for the most part pleased with the transformation, a sign that the project has been done well.  At the same time, the gourmet local food, the folk and indie music scene, and the sheer natural beauty are plenty enough reason for shades of hippie/hipster/urbanite to escape to the countryside.

It makes me consider what growth means for a community. Perhaps it’s not always bigger and better and newer.  Integration of old and new, in a way that provides stability yet forward momentum, seems to be key.  I think the Jordans have thought harder about a socially and ethically conscious way to do development than most. Admittedly, though, there are going to be some feelings of loss along with new gains. The architectural heritage is certainly being reused, and some cultural elements have been preserved, but Saxapahaw is not a mill town anymore. In order to have a viable future, it had to adapt and draw in new people.  I’m sure the former mill families have a different outlook than my friends and I who love a good Saturday excursion to their town.

Saxapahaw has not significantly changed its landscape, but has cleanly and elegantly ushered in new features that have given it new life. I hope the confluence of elements that now characterize this eclectic town will continue to be solidified in ways that all who live there appreciate.  Maybe a new sense of culture is developing that will be shared in years to come.

I certainly am glad to have this enclave just down the road. It is a counterpart to Durham and the Triangle that makes me even more appreciative of this region of North Carolina as a whole. I’ll be heading down the road this Friday night for a Mandolin Orange show—I wonder who I will see around and about the ballroom.