Pickus Reappointed As Director Of Kenan Institute For Ethics

Noah Pickus has been reappointed to a second five-year term as the Nannerl O. Keohane Director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics (KIE) at Duke, Provost Peter Lange announced Tuesday.

The Kenan Institute for Ethics is a university-wide initiative committed to understanding and addressing ethical challenges facing individuals, organizations and societies worldwide. Its mission is to promote moral reflection and commitment, conduct interdisciplinary research, and shape policy and practice.

"Noah's leadership of the Kenan Institute for Ethics has been outstanding, extending the institute's engagement with faculty and students, addressing important ethical issues in society through its programming and building the support for the institute among its diverse constituencies," Lange said. "The span of the institute's programs is striking and its role both within Duke and beyond is noteworthy, in no small part due to Noah's vision and guidance."Under Pickus's leadership, KIE created new programs that foster ethical engagement among students and launched faculty-led centers and initiatives in new areas of ethics scholarship. The institute also forged partnerships with think tanks and government agencies.

In addition to serving as institute director, Pickus is an associate research professor of public policy studies. He is widely recognized for his scholarship and policy work on immigration, citizenship and national identity. He is the author of "True Faith and Allegiance: Immigration and American Civic Nationalism, Becoming American/America Becoming" and "Immigration and Citizenship in the 21st Century."

Pickus joined Duke's faculty in 1996. He left in 2002 to direct the Institute for Emerging Issues at North Carolina State University in collaboration with Gov. Jim Hunt. In 2004, he returned to Duke to be the Kenan Institute's associate director and to teach at the Sanford School of Public Policy.

In 2007, following a national search, Duke selected Pickus to be the institute's new director, succeeding founding director Elizabeth Kiss after she was named president of Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Ga.

"I am pleased by the support of the faculty and the provost for our strategic direction and I am thrilled to continue that work with the cohesive team we've built at the institute," Pickus said.Pickus's review committee was chaired by Bob Cook-Deegan, director of the Center for Genome Ethics, Law & Policy.