*Correction: Hugh Lee graduated from Davidson in 1989, not 1980 as originally stated.
Hugh Lee ’89 is “always excited when someone wants to talk about ethics.” Lee is the inaugural Director of the Program on Ethics, Honor and Leadership at Davidson. He began his position in Jan. 2026.
“The program is brand new in the Institute for Public Good,” Lee explained.
According to the Davidson website, the Institute for Public Good is focused on “fostering academic and intellectual collaboration that equips students to address society’s challenges and emerge as ethical public leaders.”
As a Davidson alum, Lee is familiar with the college’s reputation as an honor-bound school. “I operated for four years under the honor code, I pledged every paper I turned in, I did all my exams on a self-scheduled basis. I know all the values and benefits that come from living in a world where the honor code works well,” Lee said.
Lee found his way back to Davidson after his wife took a job at Wake Forest University.
“I reached out to several local higher ed institutions [in North Carolina] and started exploring possibilities and ending up speaking with Davidson about their Institute for Public Good, whether there were roles here on campus that my credentials and background might be well suited for,” Lee said. “My background teaching ethics and law and policy, which I have done for the better part of 30 years, seemed well-suited for a program that’s all about ethics and leadership.”
The Institute for Public Good agreed. “Hugh’s experience, national-level scholarship, and excellent track record of meaningful and impactful teaching make him the right person to build out the EHL program area, support pre-law programming, and do what we expect all of our faculty and staff to do—mentor and support students,” Chris Marsicano, the Founding Director at the Institute for Public Good, wrote in an email to The Davidsonian.
Lee’s resume is extensive. “I had been a law school professor for almost twenty years,” Lee said. “I had been teaching political science for the last ten, teaching pre-law classes, and a lot of the pre-law classes that I teach are really kind of about, ‘Is this how we really want to order society?’”
As director, Lee has the opportunity to shape the development of the Program on Ethics, Honor and Leadership.
“I’m kind of still exploring what the best programmatic elements are for this program to thrive and be successful,” Lee said. “[It’s] really about how do you create an ethos of honor and ethical conduct? How do you create a culture in which those things are valued?”
Lee’s position will place him in collaboration with Davidson’s Honor Council.
Honor Council Chair Maggie Woodward ’26 emphasized the symbiotic relationship between the IPG Ethics program and the Honor council. “[The program] was presented as something that would be there for us [the honor council] in a kind of support capacity as well as, obviously, creating opportunities for other students. It was meant to serve as a resource,” Woodward said.
Woodward has yet to talk to Lee, but she has high hopes for their future collaborations.
“I think any support we can get from any organization on campus would be great. It’s been awesome having the IPG be in place and having an even more fleshed out connection of what the IPG looks like in the context of the Honor Council, and what their roles look like, will be really helpful,” Woodward said. “Ideally it’s something we can lean on and they can lean on us.”
Malia Davis ’27 is a junior representative to the Honor Council.
“[Lee] understands the workings of an institution—that you can’t come in and just assert all of these changes […] if you haven’t talked to people,” Davis said. “I think it’s more like, he’s in charge of the culture, we’re in charge of adjudicating. […] Now we have this other pillar of support for programming, outreach, ideas.”
Lee is not in charge of implementing the Honor Code at Davidson However, he explained that his work will address similar concerns.
“It’s unavoidable, and appropriate, for me in this role to take stock of the current climate on campus around the honor code and around how students and professors feel about its effectiveness in creating an environment that really does hold up […] ethical behavior, as not a gold standard, but the expectation,” Lee said.
A series of events accompany Lee’s new position. “I am responsible for our annual honor council convening, which is entering its third year,” Lee said. “I’m very excited about trying to expand that and trying to get the other academic institutions that participate in it to be involved in the planning and the curricular design of that.”
The Honor Council Convening is an annual event where honor council members and advisors from an array of colleges and universities gather together to discuss how they will encourage ethical practices among their student body.
“We’re leveraging all of these schools that are coming to the program, […] their experience, their expertise, their background, in helping this program to make this an even better experience,” Lee said. “It’s been a fantastic success, I think, and I want to see it continue to grow.”
Lee will also help coordinate the Celebration of Honors.
“We’re going to have a week long of programming kind of to both celebrate the honor code and get people excited about having values that are meaningful to them,” Davis said. “So hopefully have a panel, get to meet the council. We’ll also have new leadership by then, so it’s a great way to introduce the incoming council to the community.”
While Lee’s position is new, he emphasized that Davidson’s commitment to ethics is not.
“I think whenever we’re in a certain culture or society, it’s easy to be critical of it,” Lee said. “There’s lots of things that you would hold up to other schools and other communities and say, ‘Look at us.’ And I think that the fact that we have an honor code, that we have a student-led process, and that we have students who commit to it, is a significant difference between Davidson and other schools. I think we should never take that for granted.”