The long-running Kenan print publication “Good Question” has a new name and a new look. Now titled “Good Pursuits,” this series features reflections by Duke community members on how ethics animates their work.
In the new issue, we interview Michael Kliën, Professor of the Practice of Dance and director of the Laboratory for Social Choreography at the Kenan Institute for Ethics.
By creating the conditions for groups of people to experience and imagine new possibilities through movement, Michael Kliën says, we can change the world.
“We can dig a lot into the structure of socialization simply by moving our bodies and asking questions.” – Michael Kliën
Print copies of the new issue of “Good Pursuits” are available at the Kenan Institute for Ethics office in 102 West Duke.
How does telling your own story help you figure out how to live your life? With the help of great thinkers, poets, and mystics, a new initiative of Duke Chapel and the Kenan Institute for Ethics offers students the chance to explore their own internal ethics through storytelling — and to ask how they might direct those beliefs into external action.
People typically think of college as a place for young adults to embark on journeys of self-discovery — getting to know people who are different from them, exploring new hobbies and intellectual interests, and learning how to be independent.
For Leah Torrey, college is also a time of moral formation, and with the help of storytelling, this can be just as fun as it is meaningful.
As the director of Say the Thing, a storytelling initiative launched by Duke Chapel in partnership with the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Torrey creates “meaning-making opportunities” for students to engage in ethical self-reflection. These can span from writing a poem at a pop-up event (or “Lark”) to six weekly sessions at “the Studio,” which helps students tell their own stories through reading and discussing works from “big thinkers” from across the disciplines.
“We’re trying to create a program where you can walk in from every door,” Torrey said.
During a “Lark” on the Bryan Center walkway on a sunny day in October, a student volunteer called out “Free art for your dorm!” to passers-by — who, after stopping out of curiosity, learned that they would be making the art themselves.
A prompt on the table read “What makes you come alive?” Taking up markers and sheets of pages from books, including a humble dictionary, participants blacked out words, sentences, and entire paragraphs, leaving their answer in a cluster of words comprising a mini-poem.
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Taking up markers and pages from books, students blacked out words, sentences, and entire paragraphs, leaving their answer in a cluster of words comprising a mini-poem. Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
A student pauses between classes to respond to a question posed at a pop-up event organized by Say the Thing. Photo credit: Jimmy Paton.
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
Photo Credit: Jimmy Paton
While Say the Thing is a secular, inclusive project, it draws from many influential thinkers, both religious and not. One key figure is Howard Thurman — professor, chaplain, and mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., who is known as the “spiritual godfather” of the Civil Rights Movement.
“He’s often overlooked, but his philosophy undergirds all of this,” Torrey said.
Thurman’s book “Jesus and the Disinherited” focuses on a “minoritized man living in an oppressive society, who uses non-violent tactics to create systemic change,” Torrey said.
“You don’t need to be Christian to read it,” she added.
Another is “Meditations of the Heart,” she said, which drives home the message that “one has to look inwards and move outwards, back and forth….the inward analysis directs one’s outward actions.”
This resonates for Torrey, a former community organizer.
“In organizing,” she said, “the idea is that your story informs how you’re civically engaged, the actions you take.” She created the “Studio” curriculum to guide this kind of self-reflection.
The next phase of Say the Thing will see the launch of storytelling booths around campus. Supplying participants with prompts on ethical questions, these custom kiosks will record their responses, providing a record of their moral reckoning during a certain time.
Only the participants will have access to the cloud-hosted recording, which expires after a week. “You can download it or let it go,” Torrey said.
While Say the Thing playfully engages with technology, “it encourages a slow-down,” Torrey said. “The limits of older technologies have gifts to offer us.”
This is why she offers a Polaroid portrait to the people who stop and write a poem during a “Lark” — as a physical artifact of a potentially transformative moment in one’s life journey.
Learn more about Say the Thing doings and happenings by following their Instagram.
DURHAM, N.C. — The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University and the Warren County Environmental Action Team will host an event at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 14 to showcase the exhibit “We Birthed the Movement: The Warren County PCB Landfill Protests, 1978-1982.” Speakers will include two community members who played leading roles in the original protests, Dollie Burwell and Wayne Moseley, and Director of the Warren County Environmental Action Team, Rev. William Kearney. This event is free and open to the public. Through archival photographs and materials, “We Birthed a Movement” offers a retrospective of a large, community-driven protest against N.C. Governor Jim Hunt’s 1978 decision to place a landfill for toxic waste in the small, majority Black town of Afton in Warren County. A multiracial, intergenerational coalition of citizens fought against the landfill for years, eventually committing civil disobedience in a 1982 protest, lying down in the roads to block the passage of the trucks carrying the PCB-laden soil.
Though the protests were ultimately unsuccessful at preventing the landfill, their legacy has endured. Forty years later, they are widely considered the beginning of the environmental justice movement.
“We Birthed a Movement” was originally created by staff at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Wilson Library in collaboration with Warren County community members to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the protests. It is now on display at the Kenan-Keohane Gallery on the first floor of the West Duke Building on Duke University’s East Campus.
A photograph from the “We Birthed a Movement” exhibit shows Dollie Burwell (center, holding her hand against her neck) and Wayne Moseley (left, in striped polo shirt), as they gather with a crowd before a 1982 protest. Photo Credit: Jerome Friar.
In addition to viewing the exhibit, attendees of the public event on October 14 will have the opportunity to hear from two community members who played pivotal roles in the protests, Dollie Burwell and Wayne Moseley.
This event is brought to you by the Warren County Environmental Action Team, the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and one of its signature programs Just Environments (a partnership with the Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability).
Dollie Burwell led her community in the Warren County protests, organizing local meetings at Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church and recruiting national civil rights leaders to join the fight. She was eventually arrested and imprisoned for blocking the trucks carrying the PCB-laced soil. Later, she chaired a task force that secured over 25 million dollars from the state of North Carolina to detoxify the landfill. Widely recognized as a committed fighter for environmental justice in numerous media outlets, she was recently featured in The Washington Post’s coverage of the 40-year anniversary of the protests. She currently serves as Vice Chair on the board of directors of the Warren County Environmental Action Team, a dedicated network of organizations and individuals working together to document, celebrate, and share Warren County’s environmental justice legacy, natural resources, and diverse culture.
Wayne Moseley was one of the first Warren County citizens to be arrested during the protests. He co-directed “Warren County: Birth of a Movement,” a documentary that tells the story of the citizens of Warren County and their contributions to the movement for environmental justice. Retired in 2019 after a 47-year career in post-secondary education, he continues to advocate for social justice. He is a member of the Warren County Environmental Action Team board of directors.
Rev. William Kearney will join the two speakers in reflecting on the movement’s legacy and will moderate a conversation to follow. Rev. Kearney is Director and Board Chair of the Warren County Environmental Action Team and the organizer of the Warren County African American History Collective. He partners with UNC-Chapel Hill on several community-engaged research initiatives, in addition to advising and consulting with other universities and organizations across the state and nation. He currently serves as Associate Minister and health ministry coordinator at Coley Springs Missionary Baptist Church.
The program will be followed by a light reception.
Parking on Duke University’s East Campus is free and open to the public and operates on a first-come, first-served basis. A few spots close to the building are reserved for attendees requiring greater accessibility. If you find East Campus parking full, free street parking is available along Buchanan and the adjacent side streets. Should you or someone you know require accessible parking, please reach out to Jac Arnade-Colwill at jac.arnade-colwill@duke.edu. The Kenan-Keohane Gallery is wheelchair accessible via a basement entrance on the north side of the building and the elevator to the first floor.
Event Details: Date: Saturday, October 14, 2023 Time: The gallery will open at 3:00 p.m., the program will take place between 4–4:45 p.m., and the gallery will close at 6:00 p.m. For those who cannot attend the event, the exhibit will remain on view until mid-November. The gallery is open during normal business hours, Monday through Friday. Location: Kenan-Keohane Gallery, on the first floor of the West Duke Building, East Campus, Duke University
Duke Today recently surveyed ongoing environmental justice research at Duke, highlighting the work of Kay Jowers, the Director of Just Environments at the Kenan Institute for Ethics and Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability.
Jowers emphasizes that transforming existing physical infrastructure to address persistent racial inequality is a challenge. While attitudes around race may have changed over the past century, the legacies of segregation still shape the built environment. This can lead to disproportionately negative environmental impacts on Black communities.
“This is about the built-in environment that already exists. So we are not going to wipe the slate clean with the existing landfills. We cannot rebuild all the housing stock in Durham,” said Jowers.
Jowers says we also have to acknowledge that institutions like Duke have contributed to these conditions; for instance, by selling properties with racial covenants in the neighborhoods surrounding West Campus in the ‘30s and ‘40s.
“It’s important to be sensitive to the role institutions have played in the impact of racially restrictive covenants.” – Kay Jowers
Read the full article by Thomasi Mcdonald about Jowers and other environmental justice programs on the Duke Today website.
Along with DukeEngage Paraguay program director Christine Folch, Connors was invited on to the primetime Paraguayan news show “En Contexto” to talk about his research.
A DukeEngage program asked students to envision new development possibilities for Paraguay, a small South American country with a big electricity surplus. Two years post-DukeEngage, alum Austin Connors traveled to Paraguay as a Fulbright Scholar to research its energy policies amid ongoing debates.
“This is the overall debate in Paraguay right now: how this energy should be priced in order to best utilize it. The more specific question is: which industries are trying to use the energy, and which make sense in terms of investing back in the country?” – Austin Connors
A group of 20 pre-health students spent a week immersed in the arts and the medical humanities, using movement, expressive writing, improv, art and photography to connect with others — and themselves.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, many medical professionals were in the midst of a mental health crisis, exacerbated by complicated bureaucratic tasks, long shifts, and understaffed units. All of these pressures combine to create the conditions for burnout, a state of all-encompassing exhaustion caused by chronic stress. According to the National Institute for Health Care Management, 75% of healthcare workers reported burnout in 2021.
ReMed fellows spend an immersive week on campus in mid-May. In workshops led by health practitioners, medical historians, ethicists, and artists, they participate in activities like expressive writing, movement, and photography to explore moral issues related to health care. Then, throughout the summer, they use these practices to reflect on their experiences working in health care-related positions, such as volunteering in clinics or hospitals, doing research in a lab, or interning with companies providing medical services.
By using the arts and humanities to analyze themes that are often absent in traditional pre-health education, the students learn how to better connect with others and with themselves.
Throughout the summer, ReMed fellows meet with their cohort on Zoom to discuss themes related to medicine. “One thing that has been important to me about this program is getting to know my fellow members and seeing them every week,” said Sriya Dhupati. “We’re all supporting each other, and we’re all going to be there for each other in the future.” From left to right, Morgan Hough, Sophia Sparrow, Meera Gangasani, Laila Khan-Farooqi, Kaden Bock, Sriya Dhupati, Anika Pawlak, Sophie Wu, Blake Perdikis, Alex LaTrenta, Matthew Lee, Program Coordinator Victoria Yunez Behm, Faculty Director Warren Kinghorn, Will Lieber, Danielle Okotcha, Maya Chandar, Christina Lewis, and Sabrina Sebastian-San Miguel. Not pictured: Luxuan Li, Madiha Khan, Meera Patel, and Amitesh Verma.
ReMed fellows described how techniques like expressive writing could help them in their future careers as medical professionals.
“I think journaling is really cool,” said Sriya Dhupati T’24. “I feel like I might implement that into my life, even after ReMed.”
“The journaling has been kind of a necessity,” said Blake Perdikis T’24, in reference to his recent experiences working with paramedics providing medical care in rural Tennessee. “There have been some things that have been very hard for me to unpack.”
He also noted that writing can be an effective way to process the physical effects of stress. “Understanding that physiological things could be affecting your judgment could come in handy as a medical professional.”
During their immersive week, ReMed fellows visited different non-medical staff at Duke Hospital to learn about their work and its impact on the patient experience. In this photo, environmental services staff member Tavion Burden teaches students how ultraviolet light machines disinfect patient rooms.
Several students mentioned the value of the movement techniques they learned from Sarah Wilbur, a Duke dance artist and scholar. Amitesh Verma T’25 said that his initial interest in ReMed was driven by a course he took with Wilbur called “Arts and Health Care,” which he described as “eye-opening.”
Re-connecting with one’s own body through movement not only helps to relieve physical and mental stressors: it can also promote teamwork and heighten awareness.
“One of my favorite sessions was with Dr. Sarah Wilbur,” said Anika Pawlak T’24, “on movement and the role it plays in connecting you to your environment and the people in it, and to yourself.”
“I really loved when we were exploring how movement and dance [could be] incorporated into health,” said Perdikis. “There’s this one exercise we would do. We would take inventory of our body, and afterwards, she’d say, ‘You should feel like a warm can of soda,’ and you totally do. Like, you just feel aware, and your reception is perfect.”
Verma said that the ReMed program provides students with the resources to connect with patients and to view them holistically, rather than simply rushing to diagnose them. He calls this “building character.”
“Physics and chemistry are going to prepare you to solve the illness at hand, but I’ve realized that solving the illness at hand is just not enough,” he said. “I’ve been in the hospital a couple of times in my life, and it’s been really worthwhile when a doctor does really, truly understand you — not just your condition.”
“Ethics and history and arts — you bring that all together when you’re trying to think about how to treat a patient,” he continued.
Students stand in front of the painting “Dr. Henry Bethune” by Hung Liu during a visit to the North Carolina Museum of Art. During a gallery tour led by Duke Medical Instructor John David Ike, students shared their emotional responses and tried to imagine the experiences of figures in the artworks.
The hope is that in addition to viewing patients holistically, the students also develop a holistic approach to their own wellbeing, whether by connecting with their bodies through meditation or unpacking complex emotions through writing.
“These are the types of things I wish every pre-med student was required to do,” said Pawlak. “Techniques to be more self-aware and more present are also going to make you more present to other people.”
“Having this kind of experience really does have an impact on making us better and more holistic healers,” said Dhupati.
And being creative can help you reconnect to your own sense of purpose.
“It’s always reorienting your mind as to why you want to do medicine, or why you want to be in medicine,” said Perdikis. “I think just keeping that spark alive is one of the biggest things for burnout.”
Duke Today recently surveyed ongoing environmental justice research at Duke, highlighting the work of 
