Rebecca Vidra Wants to Bring Character Education into the Classroom
Kenan Institute for Ethics Senior Faculty Fellow Rebecca Vidra recently published an op-ed in Inside Higher Ed on her plans to incorporate character education into her courses — not only for her students, but also for herself.
Vidra, Senior Lecturer in Marine Conservation and Ethics in Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment, describes character education as the practice of helping students develop intellectual virtues like curiosity, humility, and resilience.
Using strategies from the Institute for Social Concerns at the University of Notre Dame and the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, Vidra plans to include the development of intellectual virtues as a learning objective on her course syllabi and incorporate reflection exercises to help hone students’ sense of purpose.
Vidra writes that she hopes that she will be able to practice these intellectual virtues through her teaching, too.
“I am actively working to cultivate my own resilience, my own ability to keep showing up as a facilitator with curiosity and humility. I am preparing to practice what I teach.”
— Rebecca Vidra
Vidra will be supported in her efforts through a grant from the Educating Character Initiative at the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University.
In June 2025, she also received an Emerging Pedagogies Grant from Duke Learning Innovation and Lifelong Education to “investigate the ways in which Duke’s Masters of Environmental Management (MEM) students currently explore their purpose and identify innovative strategies for further integrating purpose work.”
As a new Kenan Senior Faculty Fellow, Vidra will serve as a liaison between The Purpose Project at Duke and the Nicholas School of the Environment, and will develop an undergraduate course related to the aims of The Purpose Project.
Read Rebecca Vidra’s op-ed — “Can Intellectual Virtues Re-Energize Teaching?” — here.
