An ethical institute turns into the opposite

Jeredine is in 5th grade. She doesn’t know her age because her family fled violence in Rwanda when she was only a baby to move to Durham, North Carolina. Each year, she choses a different day to be her “birthday.” 

 

This year, she decided her birthday would be on November 17th, the same day Lana Gensisky, a senior at Duke University, was born. Since her freshman year, Gensisky has worked with Jeredine every Tuesday night through a program called the Kenan Refugee Project (KRP) within The Kenan Institute for Ethics, or Kenan for short. KRP pairs Duke student mentors with Durham refugees from fourth grade to senior year to help transition them into school and life in the United States. The pair initially bonded at a desk in West Duke 101 over a shared love for art, but now spend their time over Zoom since the beginning of the pandemic.

 

Their friendship is emblematic of the countless relationships built between Duke and the refugee population in Durham. Since 2010, West Duke filled with a group of about fifty students every Tuesday united under a common cause and the guidance of Suzanne Shanahan, the former Director of Kenan, and her husband Bill Tobin. 

 

This was until the program was ultimately set up to fail by an institution that prides itself on teaching a set of moral principles. In the fall of 2021, Shanahan departed Kenan to become a professor at Notre Dame University with Tobin to follow her at the end of the year. Students who were passionate about the program were puzzled with how KRP might continue, but were met by silence from the leaders of Kenan. It appeared that a project that continually touted the need for a genuine connection between mentors and mentees, was going to end without an advance notice to the refugee community. 

 

But, on the very last Tuesday of the semester, Tobin announced that Ada Gregory, the Assistant Director of Kenan would follow in his footsteps. 

 

Shivangi Choudhary, who had worked with her mentee Ethaar since freshman year sent Gregory an email on April 22nd expressing her interest in helping Gregory transition into her new role and indicate students that would be willing to help run KRP the following year. On May 13th, five days after her own graduation, Choudhary followed up. The same day, Gregory responded saying, “We’ll be getting folks together soon!” On August 10th, Choudhary followed up again. On Monday August 29th, the first day of classes, Gregory finally responded, “We’re getting students together tomorrow at the regular meeting time and have lots of former students helping lead the charge this fall.”

 

Connor Blue, a senior, and Michael Romney, a sophomore, were two of the students who were contacted to “lead the charge.” They were contacted via email on August 29th about two hours after Gregory claimed to have a leadership team in place. 

 

The Kenan Institute for Ethics website states that it is “an interdisciplinary think and do tank committed to promoting moral reflection and commitment, conducting interdisciplinary research, and shaping policy and practice at Duke and beyond.”

 

KRP used to be the definition of what Kenan did best: engage with the community in a meaningful way while teaching students about the ethical challenges associated with an issue. In Gregory’s failure to accept any student assistance before the first week of school and outright lie about any preparation that took place, she failed to abide by the mission of the institution she works for.

 

Choudhary was baffled. “Why would you accept responsibility for a program if you are not willing to put in any of the work?” she said, “Ada’s role never had to be extensive. All she had to do was reach out to seniors, make a plan, and set some expectations.” 

 

Gregory was trusted with a project that was 12 years in the making. In the matter of months she is letting the program die. 

 

Kate Brownstein, a senior in KRP, isn’t the type of student to let things go without putting up a fight. “I’m a very bossy person,” she said, and made it clear to Gregory that she was willing to put in the work for this program. She asked repeatedly to be given contact lists for families they had been helping for years so that new pairings with Duke students could be made. Gregory claimed she never had access to it.

 

A week later on Tuesday September 6th, Brownstein and Romney were finally given access to the Google Drive with all shared documents and contact lists from Choudhary. When she looked into the folder’s sharing options, Choudhary could clearly see Gregory’s email was given access to it in the spring. 

 

Now Choudhary was infuriated. She says, “I think it was very deliberate that she didn’t respond to my emails until August. I think it was very deliberate that she told Kate she didn’t have access to anything when she had the Drive with her. I think it was very deliberate that she had a list of seniors who we said would be more than happy to help and she chose not to reach out to people. She had everything she needed to run the program and she chose not to.”

 

When Brownstein realized there weren’t enough mentors for mentees, she asked Gregory for assistance in expanding the program, but Gregory, “was adamantly against gaining any more Duke students or Durham students. She was very explicit in saying that we shouldn’t expand the program.” 

 

KRP is a pillar of Kenan. It is advertised across their website. It is promoted on the walls of their building. Yet, a leader of Kenan is actively undermining any student effort to continue the program. “They’re an ethics institute and this was handled completely unethically,” Choudhary says, “If you don’t actually take your own advice in your own life and show it to your students then that’s hypocritical.” 

 

It’s been 12 years of building relationships with refugees in Durham. Jeredine will still spend her shared birthday with Gensisky because current students are refusing to bail on relationships they’ve been committed to for years. But Gensisky will graduate in the spring. Without an ethical leader to continue recruiting new students to mentor and keep in contact with the broader refugee population, this will be the last time Jeredine spends a birthday with a Duke student.