VOLUME XII, NUMBER 30

 

#& INNOVATION ABSTRACTS

PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

WITH SUPPORT FROM THE W. K. KELLOGG FOUNDATION AND THE SID W. RICHARDSON FOUNDATION

 

Ethics in Higher Education

In many academic institutions these days, the three
“R’s” are recruitment, retention, and revenue. At
Brookdale Community College we have been giving
some attention to the fourth “R,” responsibility. In May
1989, I was charged with organizing a series of seminars
on moral concerns at the college. The process by which
the seminars were constructed and the outcomes they
generated are worthy of discussion.

SCESE

The first step consisted of an appeal sent to the entire
college community asking for input regarding specific
ethical concerns. Individuals were invited to remain
anonymous and to formulate their concerns as mini
case studies in which the names and nonessential
details were changed to disguise the living. To my
surprise, only 19 responses were received from a total of
200 appeals. However, the high quality of these re-
sponses more than offset the lack of quantity. Several
respondents sent lengthy memos; many offered mul-
tiple situations for consideration.

The next step was to organize these responses and to
rewrite them for stylistic consistency. I arranged the
suggestions into five sets: student issues, faculty issues,
issues involving learning assistants, union issues, and
administrative issues. Each set of issues contained four
or five mini case studies for discussion.

Since the first two sets seemed to be of more general
interest, we agreed to repeat the discussion of these
issues several times. The last three sets were scheduled
once each. Nine discussions were planned in three se-
quences: one sequence for the Monday lunch hour, a
second for Tuesday evenings, and a third for Friday
afternoons.

Another bulletin was sent to the college community
advertising the sessions under the title of “Ethics in
Higher Education.” Interested personnel were encour-
aged to register for one sequence of three discussions,

and they could join either as participants or spectators.
This time the response improved: 36 faculty, staff, and
administrators registered. Of these, 19 volunteered to
participate; 17 preferred to simply observe. Because
there was a strong preference for the lunch hour, the
Tuesday evening sessions were cancelled, and a second
sequence was scheduled for another set of Mondays.

Each of the participants was sent a copy of the
“script” of case studies for his/her sequence. The basic
discussion model was that used on the TV series “Ethics
in America,” in which I took the role of a principal char-
acter and the participants took other roles.

In the first discussion, for example, I played the role
of a student, and participants played various faculty
members. As Uriah Unready, I struggled with a math
course for which I was ill-prepared, and the faculty
member was challenged to decide how far he/she
would extend his/her moral responsibility to remain
patient and available for extra help. Later I became Jack
Jocco, who showed no interest in a philosophy course,
only to learn toward the end of the term that he desper-
ately needed the credit for an athletic scholarship.
Finally, I became Linda Lovelorn and encouraged a
relationship with my accounting teacher as I continually
sought extra help after my evening class.

Similar kinds of artificial—yet real—situations were
used for discussions on administrative, faculty, learning
assistant, and union issues. No attempts were made to
find the “right” answers, but in many cases the partici-
pants came up with a set of tentative guidelines to
distinguish morally acceptable from morally una:
able behavior.

>pt-

It is important that ethical discussion be based upon
issues that are of genuine interest at any given time on
campus. It is difficult to get people to submit issues
about which discussions could be organized, but
offering the college community the opportunity to
submit them democratizes the process and removes
suspicions of a hidden administrative agenda. Had we
received fewer responses, I was prepared to “beat the
bushes” for help from my immediate colleagues.

 

 

EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712

THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STAFF AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (NISOD)
Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin