At a University where the emphasis lies on individual, competitive achievement, the time to reflect on ethical issues is almost non-existent.

Hence, in 1986, then-President Derek Bok founded the Program in Ethics and the Professions, which was intended to encourage teaching and research on ethical issues in public and professional life.

As the program celebrates its 10th anniversary with a conference at the Kennedy School this weekend, its influence over the study of ethics at the University and across the country is uncontestable.

The program became the first of the University's five inter-faculty initiatives at President Neil L. Rudenstine's accession in 1991.

"The program has been...international in scope, [faculty trained by the program] have gone back to their home institutions where they have helped teach other faculty," says the program's director, Dennis F. Thompson. "It has been a missionary movement."

In addition to its outreach to the international community, the program has expanded its web to touch most of the University's professional schools, using a cross-disciplinary approach that mixes the teaching of ethics with professional training.

But faculty and financial support for this approach--which promotes the study of ethics in a wide host of classes--sometimes has been lacking.

The Program

At the center of the program are the Fellowships in Ethics, which are awarded to between four and eight faculty members each year. The fellows are usually faculty members from Harvard and other universities.

These year-long fellowships allow scholars to conduct their own research in ethics while attending seminars, workshops and study groups.

Graduates of the program have taught in subjects ranging from philosophy to medical ethics in places ranging from Cambridge to Cape Town, South Africa.

The success of these fellows was integral to earning respect for the program as a whole, says Thompson, who is also associate provost and professor of government.

"At the beginning there was a lot of skepticism....I could make all the arguments at the abstract level, but what really had an effect was bringing first-rate people," Thompson says.

Alumni of the program include Amy Gutmann, dean of the faculty at Princeton, who founded its Center for Human Values, and Elizabeth Kiss, who is now the director of Duke University's Kenan Center for Ethics.

In 1990, with support from a grant by the American Express Foundation, the University added a program for graduate fellows as well.