AGC Faculty Code of Ethics

1

AGC Faculty Code of Ethics

Presentation to AGC April 8th, 2008
2
Faculty Ethics Development Committee

• Steve Abid
• Nickie Alexander
• Sandy Andrews
• Tom Boersma
• Laurie Foster
• Mike Klawitter
• Mike Light
• Kathleen Owens
• Diane Sparks
• Mike Vargo

3
History of Faculty Ethics Initiative

• Winter 07 subcomittee formed to develop
  faculty ethics code
• Two previous year-end reviews of faculty
  priorities emphasized ethics issues
• Even 04-05 Faculty Senate (pre AGC) had an
  ethics committee, and Senate minutes include
  requests for clarity around ethics guidelines

4
Team formally met in F 07

• Reviewed existing GRCC ethics resources
• HR PBM gt Ethics Monitoring system Ethics
  Hotline
• Existing FA Code of Ethics

5
Broader look at Ethics

• Ethics defined by the Oxford English Dictionary
  (2nd Edition, 1989)
• pl. ethics. (after Gr. ).
• The science of morals the department of study
  concerned with the principles of human duty.
• The moral principles by which a person is guided.
• The rules of conduct recognized in certain
  associations or departments of human life.

6
Broader look at Professional Ethics

• Many self-regulating professional groups have
  ethical codes of conduct.
• AAUP American Association of University
  Professors
• Established ethical guidelines for faculty
• Rely on parent institution to manage
• Virtually all of the colleges and universities we
  surveyed had established faculty ethics codes.

7
Functions of Ethical Codes

• Aspirational - these are the core values that we
  hold and aspire to manifest in our professional
  conduct.
• Educational with these codes we educate others
  in our profession about the values/beliefs/behavio
  rs that we have decided are central to ethical
  conduct.
• Regulatory these are principles we use to
  regulate our own behavior, and agree that these
  are principles to which we, as professionals,
  choose to be held accountable.

8
Empirical study of ethics issues

• American Scientist (1993)
• 88 of faculty believe ethical preparedness
  training should be institutionalized.
• Only 4 felt their institutions actually did
  this.
• J of Higher Ed (1999)
• majority of faculty (51 M 65 W) reported
  ethics concerns on their campuses.
• 31 classified these as very serious.
• AAUP (2007) on need for education in ethics
• These data indicate that we cannot rely on
  osmotic diffusion of academic tradition from one
  generation to the next to produce clear
  understandings among faculty.

9
Environmental Scan

• Most schools, particularly those with Faculty
  Senate governance model, have faculty ethics
  codes
• Many of these are based on AAUP ethics statements
  (updated in 1987)
• FA code appears largely based on an earlier
  version of AAUP document

10
AAUP statement has 5 sections

• Faculty responsibility as Scholars
• Faculty responsibility as Teachers
• Faculty responsibility as Colleagues
• Faculty responsibility to the Institution
• Faculty responsibility to the Larger Community

11
Our Draft Merging AAUP statement and Existing
Code

• AAUP guidelines reflects contemporary
  collegiate standards of ethical conduct.
• Existing FA Code of Ethics honors existing GRCC
  values.
• We added a Rationale and Preamble to provide
  context.
• After 5 drafts we presented this draft to full
  faculty. Draft 5

12
Feedback from faculty

• At this point, faculty have seen this document
  multiple times
• We sent this draft to all full time and adjunct
  faculty.
• We presented to faculty at the Ethics Forum.
• We asked AGC faculty reps to present this to
  departments and provide feedback to us.
• Feedback

13
Your input and next steps

• Next Steps
• We hope to vote on this yet this year.
• In following year develop an ethics process to
  get this important information into the College
• Aspiration
• Education
• Regulation
• Questions and Comments?

14
Thats it! Thanks for taking the time to
participate in this important process.