Ethical Issues in Higher Education: Trial Answer

Trial Answer to Sample Comp Question
& Critical Comments

Edward G. Rozycki, Ed. D.

RETURN
edited 4/1/20

Relevant WebReadings:
Is Moral Leadership Possible?
Pluralism & Rationality
Islamic Moral Education
Domestic Abuse: Organizational & Employee Impact

Form B: Higher Education

Question.#2: Discuss the current debates in professional ethical issues in higher
education. Deal with the following:

a. How to recognize ethical dilemmas
b. How current concerns raise ethical issues
c. What are some leadership strategies for dealing with them on your
campus

Trial Response to Question	Critical Comments
A. To recognize ethical dilemmas, whether in education and elsewhere, one must be able to understand the definition.	A. Definition of What? Ethics? Dilemmas? Education?
B. According to various sources, ethics or ethical can be	B. ethics (a noun) or ethical (an adjective)
C. 1. a conflict "between beliefs and norms present in the current society;	C. Ethics is not a "conflict". Nor is "ethical." Perhaps you want to define "ethical conflict."
D.2. a sense of social responsibility of right and wrong within the context of socially accepted norms; and moral obligation and duty; 3. a group of moral principals, set of rules, and standards of behavior 4. character or ideals of character manifested be a race / people; 5. being in accord with approved standards of behavior or a socially or professionally accepted code; and conforming to professionally endorsed principles and practices (such as physicians, attorney, CPA, etc).	D. Is ethics a "sense," like sight, or balance, or foreboding? How so?
E. The professional educator, either faculty or administrator, can use the above as a basis for recognizing a dilemma. .In essence, it is an action that goes against the norm; this however, should not necessarily be confused with breaking a rule	E. How? Isn't that what you are supposed to be showing? Thus, the fitness of your answer depends entirely upon the definitions offered above. Are they necessary? Especially, so many of them?
F. Although the "Ivory Tower" myth is perceived by those outside academia, educational institutions are not immune from the ethical and moral problems of society.	F. This paragraph does not add anything.
G. Institutions face a number of inherent moral conflicts from faculty, administration, trustees and students, and numerous external constituencies. These conflicts can range from institutional development (fund raising efforts), programming selection, financial resources, and the evaluative process to name a few.	G. What makes them "inherent?".
H. However, when funding resources become an issue then moral / ethical conflicts are exacerbated.	H. (Why need that be the case? Are ethical dilemmas a matter of money?)
I. Some of the current concerns that may lead to moral / ethical issues include, but are not limited to: diversity, plagiarism, medical research and access to education.	I. "some" already implies "not limited to"
J. Ethical issues in diversity can take the form of faculty and student ratio percentages in ethnic nationality, gender, and age for hiring practices and admission standards. An institution that has a diversity statement and hiring practices that does not discriminate against ethnic nationality, gender, age, orientation, etc, and follows it should not have an issue.	J. What does it mean to" follow it"?
K. In hiring, the institution should be not be looking at the minimum standards of the job, but rather hiring the candidate who fits the criteria the best while being cognizant of the diversity standard. These practices need to include all levels from janitorial to senior management. In admissions, standards should not be so conservative to eliminate social classes of students nor ethnic background. However, the academic standards of the institution also need to be maintained.	K. Are all these conditions compatible? Isn't the issue precisely that they often cannot be met at the same time? In addition, isn't there a concern about intent as well as outcome?
L. Plagiarism is fast becoming an increased concern for higher education in both the faculty and student circles due to the internet and increased competition for academic positions. For students a form of plagiarism has somewhat existed in the recognized use of cliff notes and study aids that have been accepted by faculty. The internet, however, has provided an extensive and easy to use method of plagiarizing assignments. Both sides of the desk are providing resources to fight this issue. As more students rely on the internet to provide papers, which can be found on every subject necessary, faculty are being provided with programs that search that same internet to match links to potential plagiarism sources. For faculty, plagiarism may start with the presentation of their CV and lead further into their research and published papers/books	L. And the ethical conflict raised is....?
M. Medical research has come to the forefront more recently with concerns raised in stem cell research and cloning. Concerns have also been raised with research on human subjects, the risk involved in the various treatment groups (control/non- control), incomplete disclosure of the medical risks to the research subjects, and obtaining samples (i.e. tissue, blood), without the consent of the subject.	M. These raise ethical concerns because ....(Show how an element of your definition above applies here.)
N. Newer concerns have arisen in the area of admissions for institutions facing enrollment challenges due to student financial abilities. Private institutions, with higher tuition and fees and competing for the students against public institutions that may offer comparably the same academic program but at a much lower tuition and fee rate. Institutions that admit students to increase enrollment (or diversity numbers) but do not provide the financial, social or academic resources to ensure the success of the student are creating an institutional dilemma.	N. Which is? How is it an ethical dilemma?
O. Institutional leadership should maintain and monitor the ethical standards of the institution. The culture of the institution must be exhibited in what will and will not be tolerated as behavior	O. The culture of the institution must be exhibited in what will and will not be tolerated as an expectation of?* behavior*
P. Senior management must be able to make decision based on these standards of accepted ethical behavior. All institutions should have educational standards of academic integrity such as review or grievance committees that need to include members of the institution for all levels. Policy and procedure manuals need to be reviewed annually to ensure their compliance with the standards. However, the bottom line is the ability of the administration to stand by their principals in their decisions, otherwise them and the institution will suffer the consequences.	P. Isn't the problem more likely that, for the powerholders concerned, being ethical has more immediate negative consequences than ignoring ethics?
Q. According to John Gardner, in The Leadership Challenge, there are four goals of leadership that will be helpful in successfully avoiding ethical dilemmas. There are: 1) releasing human potential, 2) balancing the needs of the individual and the community (institution), 3) defending the fundamental values of the community (institution), and 4) instilling in individuals a sense of initiative and responsibility.	Q. If these are goals of leadership, then it would seem that until they are achieved, ethical dilemmas cannot be avoided, following Gardner's logic. Unless you want to explain how these purport to do what he says you might not want to bring them up.
R. For educational institutions, these are important, however, the goals of balancing, defending and instilling, will provide the institutional basis for maintaining their ethical standards.	R. ... will provide (you, or Gardner, hope?)* the institutional basis...*
S. Additionally, there is a core set of general ethical principles that may be used by institutional leaders to determine the morality of their actions. These include: the principle of fairness, the principle of maximizing benefits, the principle of universalism and the principle of treating others as ends in themselves and not merely as a means. "The principles need to be used in the context of the value placed on facts, which form the basis for moral judgments, these are subjective, or dependent on the individual viewpoint." (E-Reserves 804: Introduction to Ethical Problems	S. You might begin with this last paragraph first and show how violating the principle could occur in the different contexts you mentioned, or how, what are recognized as ethical problems in those contexts result as a violation of these principles. Ask yourselves, Have you dealt with the problem presented? How to recognize ethical dilemmas How current concerns raise ethical issues Some leadership strategies for dealing with them on your campus

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