Through curricular and co-curricular programs, The Purpose Project at Duke invites students into learning communities that cultivate habits of heart, mind, and action, with the aim of helping them flourish during and beyond their time at Duke. By foregrounding ethical and existential concerns, it provides students opportunities to reflect on their lives in intellectually challenging and rewarding ways, both examining the values that have shaped their lives so far and deciding what matters most to them in their current and future pursuits.

On a broader scale, The Purpose Project at Duke seeks to reshape the culture of education at Duke by tempering both the instrumental, pre-professional tendencies of undergraduate education and the credentialing narrowness of graduate and professional training. The overarching goal is to help all students navigate pathways toward vocations that are not only personally meaningful but contribute to the betterment of society.

The Purpose Project at Duke is a collaboration between the Kenan Institute for Ethics, Duke Divinity School, and the Office of the Provost. It is funded by The Duke Endowment.

Character Forward is a partnership with the Pratt School of Engineering. A school-wide initiative, it aims to cultivate positive character traits in engineering students. The goal is for Pratt graduates to receive a rigorous engineering education while also becoming better people. Character Forward also offers a fellowship program that invites Pratt undergraduate students to explore the ethical dimensions of engineering through a spring semester course and seminar series.

Pursuing Purpose offers a curricular bridge to direct work experience over the summer. Each year, currently sophomores and juniors apply to take Pursuit of Purpose, a one-credit interdisciplinary seminar designed to hone students’ personal sense of purpose, situate that ethos in the contemporary world of work, and provide practical steps for moving forward. By semester’s end, each fellow has a funded internship placement for the summer, during which they will continue to reflect on questions raised in the course. Students design and participate in a Purpose Symposium upon returning to campus in the fall.

ReMed seeks to foster the character, imagination, and practices needed to work effectively in contexts of human suffering and healing. Leaders in many disciplines — history, ethics, visual and performing arts, spirituality, and expressive writing, as well as doctors and other healthcare professionals from a range of specialties—help students explore themes often absent in traditional medical education.

Say the Thing is a storytelling initiative that gives students frameworks to wrestle with life’s hard questions and to question their own answers. Its offerings range from pop-up arts events called “Larks” to a six-week program called “the Studio” where students meet weekly to discuss the works of writers and respond to reflection prompts. This program is a partnership between Duke Chapel and Kenan Institute for Ethics.

Teaching on Purpose brings doctoral students and faculty together to explore what it means to be a good teacher of undergraduates and to learn educational practices that will help their students flourish. This program is an opportunity for graduate students to cultivate their own sense of purpose as aspiring teachers who soon will be (and maybe already are) playing a vital role in the flourishing of undergraduates.