Ethics Director To Step Down

Twenty years after then President Derek Bok hired him as the first director of the University’s Center for Ethics, Dennis Thompson is resigning from the post, partly so that now interim president Bok can name his replacement.

Thompson, also the Whitehead professor of political philosophy, will step down at the end of the academic year.

Bok will personally oversee the search for a replacement.

“Part of the reason [for stepping down] is that this year the Center is celebrating its twentieth anniversary, and I thought it would be an appropriate time to step down,” Thompson said. “But the other reason is Derek Bok. He was the one who appointed me, and ethics has been one of the subjects he’s had as a priority.”

Thompson plans to take a year leave before returning to teach at the University, and said he will devote that time to various “writing projects” with an emphasis on exploring democratic theory.

Founded in 1986, the program—formerly the Center for Ethics and the Professions—was renamed in 2004 the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, in recognition of a “significant gift,” according to Thompson.

The primary mission of the Center is to “help increase the expertise of faculty who are teaching ethics courses at professional school level, and to encourage younger scholars to make ethics teaching their career objective,” according to the Center’s Web site.

Every year, the program brings together faculty and graduate students to address ethical issues in a wide range of disciplines, including government, journalism, law, medicine, public health, and public policy.

Fellows participate in a weekly three-hour seminar with the Center, conduct independent research, and are encouraged to participate in various academic programs throughout the University.

Under Thompson’s direction, the Center provided financial assistance to over 30 professors at the College to help them incorporate ethical issues in their courses. The Center also helped develop ethics programs at the Medical School, Law School, Business School, Kennedy School, and the schools of Public Health and Education.

Thompson said he would most miss “the daily intellectual contact and intensity” of the Center. He noted as one of his proudest achievements the institution of a summer grant program for Harvard undergraduates.