DURHAM — In the convocation ceremony last fall, hundreds of

Duke University freshmen publicly promised never to lie, cheat or

steal during their academic careers. Their signed pledges were

later framed on parchment to be posted in the East Campus

Student Union, for everyone to see.

Moral leadership and civic involvement were the subject this month

of Duke student-faculty panel discussions. And starting with the

2000 freshman class, students are required to take two courses

with an element of “ethical inquiry,” in which they analyze the

consequences of personal and political decisions.

Matthew Baugh, a senior from Raleigh and co-chairman of the

undergraduate judicial board, sees

all this as evidence of an evolving Duke — a campus at which

academic integrity and ethical conduct really matter.

“We recognize clearly we’ve got a long way to go, a lot of work ahead

of us,” said Baugh, who has joined with other student leaders to

emphasize the university’s 8-year-old honor code.

The evolution on campus is no accident. Baugh attributes much of the

change to Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics.

Five years ago, a $2 million gift from the William R. Kenan Jr. Fund

for Ethics got the program started. Last year, a $10 million endowment

from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust established the

institute permanently.

It was the dream of the late Frank Kenan, a Durham businessman and

philanthropist who envisioned a program that would pay attention to

the practical application of ethics.

“He wasn’t interested in some insular program that would promote

ethics scholarship of a highly academic kind,” said Elizabeth Kiss,

a human-rights scholar and director of the Kenan Institute since 1997.

“He wanted to see something that would really make a difference across

the university and beyond.”

Since 1995, the Kenan Institute has expanded the number of classes

that require community service. Last year, it helped create a course

in which students analyze moral choices in fields such as journalism,

public health and the environment.

– Jane Stancill