HELPING COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO BECOME MORE ETHICAL
By Dr Bill Robb

Since no educator can be a perfect educator, all educators require guidance (in differing degrees) on what being ethical is. Some universities already have mission, ethos or values statements, and even an institutional code of ethics: these are helpful starting points. However, ethos statements and professional codes of ethics are unlikely to be sufficient. A code of ethicals (rather than particularistic morals) would state in detail what is required to be an effective educator. Merely telling college students what is required will not be effective in helping them to become more ethical.

Compiling a code of ethicals would require university-wide consultation, and repeating this consultation with people new to the organisation. By encouraging students and staff to test their own and others' reasoning on each of the clauses of the code, people would come to their own realisation of what it means to be ethical. In this way, agreement is not forced but achieved, and the likelihood of people adhering to the code increased.

Here are six ways in which ethical and unethical responses could be brought to the attention of university and college students, and so assist them to become more ethical.

• In most institutions, new staff members are required to undergo an induction programme, and new students are usually given some form of orientation. During these events, specific attention should be drawn to the institution's code of ethicals and credit given for degree essays or other projects completed in this regard.

•  A college committee or working party could consider suggestions from students, lecturers, visitors and administrators, for example, on how the effectiveness of relationships between educators and students can be enhanced. For example, academic departments in universities in the United Kingdom, are required by government funding agencies to offer students the opportunity to comment on improving the courses they have undertaken.

• The university should establish specialised centres to encourage students and staff from all disciplines to reflect on ethicals. For example, the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, offers nine programmes and activities designed to "... support and to supplement the growing importance of ethical inquiry for many disciplines." I know of at least three similar centres: The Program in Ethics and the Professions in Harvard University; the Centre for Professional Ethics in the University of Central Lancaster; and the Centre for Applied Ethics in the University of Wales College, Cardiff. Such centres are an indication by senior university academics and administrators, that the study of ethicals should be taken seriously.

• An annual, prestigious award should be instituted to reward those individuals in the college who are recognised as paying particular attention to ethicals.

• Educators should analyse the curriculum of the subjects they teach and identify instances where ethicals have, and have not, been adhered to, and explicitly, albeit briefly, point these out to students. In schools in England this is called the "cross-curricular" approach and in Scotland, the "permeation" approach, the idea being that ethical issues are inherent in all subjects of the curriculum.

• A special column should be reserved in staff and student university newspapers to report on "enhancing ethical behaviour" initiatives within the institution, and to provide specific examples of ethical responses that have improved education, and explaining how unethical responses, if any, have been detrimental to education.

If some of the six recommendations are implemented, students and lecturers would think more about what it means to be ethical and this would assist them in becoming more ethical. However, unless the six recommendations are supported by more formal approaches requiring students to investigate what it means to be ethical, they are unlikely to have a major impact.

There are three main reasons for this.

1.  With the traditional requirement to show through some form of assessment, that they have gained information and technical skills, it is unlikely that most students will willingly participate in a study of ethicals.

2. Even if university and college lecturers did make considerable effort to draw students' attention to ethical issues during lectures, it would be impossible to discuss every ethical issue in detail. Discussing ethical issues adequately takes considerable time, and to do this in a chemistry, history or geography lecture or lesson, would require stopping the teaching of the subject. In addition, the educator is unlikely to be qualified to lead such a discussion. Depriving students of the information and skills they require in order to pass their examinations and to obtain employment, would be unethical

3.  It is common knowledge that many university students are required to undertake courses in business, legal or medical ethics for example, and that most school pupils are required to attend subjects such as moral education and personal and social education. However, my knowledge and experience of these courses and subjects is that they do not enable students to penetrate to the essentials of what it means to be ethical.

In light of these reasons, it is reasonable to recommend a specific and formal time in the university and college curriculum for considering what it means to be ethical. Students should be directly taught what it means to be ethical. Perhaps this could be undertaken in a set curriculum time equivalent to the time allocated to mathematics and English. Just what to call such a set time posed a problem, but "ethicals education" springs to mind. It could be claimed that the traditional "moral education" and "religious education" suffice. However, most people know that following some religious-moral norms can lead to unethical behaviour!

Another approach would be to have students reflect on and discuss in detail, particular values such as respect, honesty, and caring, or values issues such as teenage pregnancy, abortion, drug abuse, euthanasia and vandalism. From detailed discussion of these, ethicals would be uncovered and people would become more self-aware. If a person discovers ethicals, for herself, it is reasonable to suggest that she is more likely to behave according to those ethicals.

In a preliminary way, I offer the following guidelines for successful ethicals education classes at university and college.

• Although lecturers may offer guidance on topics for discussion, they must be willing to examine other options chosen by class members.

• A consensus may emerge, but this is not forced by the lecturers. In addition, the consensus view of the class is not forced, explicitly or implicitly, on any person, who does not agree.

• Lecturers’ views carry no more authority than the students’ do. Any member of the class is entitled to state why he or she would not respond in such-and-such a way, and other members of the class are entitled to respectfully test the reasoning of classmates.

• The mode of discussion is one of mutual respect where pre-agreed rules do not permit mocking, insulting and shouting, and where listening and giving reasons for one's views are required.

•  People are not told what is right or wrong in relation to any ethical issue. Sometimes, telling people how to behave and enforcing good behaviour, are necessary and desirable. However, during ethicals education classes, telling would be ineffective because the benefit comes from uncovering for oneself what is required to become more ethical. Consequently, during ethical education classes, the code of ethicals is not given, and no attempt is made to inculcate or internalise any ethicals or to indoctrinate.

There are still questions about the practicality of ethicals education. For example: Should students be required to pass an examination in ethicals education? If they did not, would they take the activity seriously? If the answer is "yes”, what form should such an examination take? Since becoming more ethical is such a personal matter, is a society justified in forcing students to participate in ethicals education? Such questions

What does all this mean for lecturers in institutions of higher and further education? Since they are fundamentally involved in guiding people in becoming more ethical, educators must know to a greater extent than their students do, what being ethical is. They need to be skilled at facilitating classes in ethicals education. Consequently, the suggestions presented so far, also apply to lecturer-training institutions.

While all trainee-educators, no matter what their subject specialism, should be required to participate in ethicals education so as to be better able to assist their students become more ethical, this does not mean that they have to specialise as facilitators of ethicals education classes. However, if ethicals education becomes a subject in its own right, specialist educators should be trained to guide others to their own realisation of what being ethical is.

It might seem that introducing ethicals education into the curricula of universities and colleges would be an uphill struggle. However, there are encouraging signs that ethicals education (or values education) is an idea whose time has come. In the United Kingdom a Values Education Council (VEC) co-ordinates the efforts of about fifteen institutions promoting values education. In the United States of America, there is The American Society for Value Inquiry (ASVI) the Institute of Global Ethics (IGE) and The Society for Values in Higher Education (SVHE), for example.

Bill Robb is a management and education consultant based in Aberdeen, Scotland. For more information and resources on values education or to invite Dr Robb to speak at your event go to www.valueseducation.co.uk. This article was originally published in the January 1998 Newsletter of the Society for Value in Higher Education, pages 14-15.