The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Ethical principles derived from the
environmental movement have
implications for human activities and organizations of all kinds.
Universities can play a key role in promoting and demonstrating
humane, life affirming, and environmentally sustainable organizational
values and ethical imperatives. Such a role carries with it
implications for the structure and function of universities. Some
of these implications for a "greening" of university administration
are explored in this presentation.
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Academic Intergrity vs. Winning
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Public Higher Education and Its Consumers:
Ethical Implications of Multiple Images of the University
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
The History of Women's Studies
The Union Institute
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Dalhousie University School of Business
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Eastern Kentucky University
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Introduction to Topic and Panel
The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Public Higher Education and Its Consumers:
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
The University of Tennessee Medical Center at Knoxville
The University of Texas
Information regarding this presentation may be obtained by contacting the author
directly.
State University of New York at Stony Brook
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Public Higher Education and Its Consumers:
Georgia Institute of Technology
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Humphrey Seminars
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Governance of Intercollegiate Athletics: Who Is
Responsible?
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
The Big Question vs. a Manageable Question
Uppsala University
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Public Higher Education and Its Consumers:
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Public Higher Education and Its Consumers:
Hartford College for Women
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Public Higher Education and Its Consumers:
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
The Importance of Teaching Philosophy of Feminism
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Information regarding this presentation may be obtained by contacting the author
directly.
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Johnson County Community College
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Intercollegiate Athletics: Who is Responsible?
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
The University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Dennie Ruth Kelley, Moderator
Norma Cook, Moderator
Vanderbilt University
Questions and comments may be directed to the Conference Convenor, Alvin G. Burstein.
This page has been accessed
Last updated: July 21, 1997
Institutions of higher education in the United States were created
to sustain the religious convictions on which our country was
founded, and to prepare citizens for the public work which was
crucial to its survival. This was how Americans understood the
relation of democracy to education; the creation of public good
through public work. However, our universities have lost their
commitment to the cultivation of meaningful public spirited work,
and instead have come to mirror the ravages of the marketplace,
with its emphasis on competition, individualism, self-interest and
control. They have lost both the art of community and the habit
of civility which is its prerequisite. Without this we have no
framework for either understanding or enacting who we are, for
institutional ethics.
A distinctive policy development in the latter half of the 20th
century, the emerging accountability interests of governing and
political agencies have produced a tensioned dialogue on higher
education governance, quality, and performance. Are the motives
and methods of civic and collegiate accountability interests
destined to be contentious and adversarial, or is there promise for
reconciling the accountability motives of improvement and
stewardship? This presentation explores the promise of a
partnership model of accountability.
Academic trust is a form of social trust,
albeit of a special form.
I will propose two models of social trust, one based on
individualism, and the other based on membership in a community that is sustained
by mutually shared values. Academic
relations are typically characterized by profound distrust,
especially in an institution (like UTK) in which governance and
economic decisions are top-down. The classical expression of
distrust is faculty movements toward unionization. This presentation will argue
that trust is a stronger institutional bond than
distrust, and that to move from institutional distrust to trust
requires a far more serious and sustained discourse on values than
we have had thus far.
While acknowledging that education is a multi-faceted enterprise,
one of many purposes and modes, this presentation will argue that
its vital heart is in individual relationships. Then, drawing upon
the thinking of Ivan Illich, the paper will explore ways in which
that vital heart is in danger of being compromised by the pressures of
institutionalization and mercantilism. Turning wisdom
into information and information into a commodity, the proliferation of a
bureaucracy that seeks to maximize its own control of
the institution and the tendency to reinterpret educational goals in
terms of the professorate's narrow self-interest are among the
instances that will be explored. The possibility of ways to guard
against these perversions will be raised, albeit not with optimism.
This paper addresses the issue of
ethics in higher education. Using the context of
business education the author argues that the university
structure ought to serve as a model for ethics education. It seems
hypocritical for universities to attempt to integrate ethics into the
curriculum without first living up to its own ethical responsibilities.
Martin Buber's (1878-1965) philosophy
of dialogue takes us
beyond language and logic to connect with others in a concrete as
well as direct communication. Like poetry, Buber's dialogical
thought creates connections where connections seemed impossible. Perhaps our
institutions of higher education could benefit
from some "poetic thinking" as well as the logical thinking we
associate with scholarly discourse. At a time when institutional
impediments make human dialogue more difficult, a re-visitation
with Buber's philosophy of dialogue could be inspirational and
educational. This paper will explore the major tenets of his
philosophy--wholeness, decision, presentness, and uniqueness.
A neo-Aristotelian view would not see morality as something
separate from the question of how well something performs its
function. In some cases one might have a great deal of trouble
getting agreement on whether a thing has a function, what it is, or
what constitutes performing it well. However, one would think
that something like academic planning should lend itself fairly
well to such an analysis and that a functional/moral evaluation of
such a planning process should not, in theory, be difficult to
achieve. This presentation will use experiences with the planning
processes at one institution as the basis for some theoretical
observations on the formidable difficulties involved in engaging
in a kind of academic planning that is likely to lead to an optimal
quality of educational experience.
Ethical Implications of Multiple Images of the University
Medical education is focused on the
technology of modern
medicine, and rightly so. The techniques of curative medicine
can be taught, the results proven. But healing is more difficult to
teach, and approaches to it are more value-laden. For the past
three decades the family practice movement has attempted to train
a cadre of doctors in a wider variety of psycho-social as well as
technological skills--hopefully to facilitate healing. Is family
medicine succeeding? This paper uses Dr. Downing's own
experience practicing family medicine in both America and Africa
to look at healing in its broader cultural context to try to answer
this question.
This presentation describes a
hypothetical debate on a law faculty
about whether to accept an offer of $7 million to name a chair for
Mussolini. The debate indicates (in a humorous way) how various
academic types would respond to the offer. In the end a
compromise of sorts is achieved.
An exploration of some of the ways in
which the participants in
the Southern Freedom Movement provide us with guides toward
the future of democracy in America.
The core of the medieval university
was the master teacher and
his students. That teacher-student relationship remains the core
of the learning process today. The Roman term Alma Mater, first
used around 1300 at Oxford to describe that University's relations
with its students, has continued to represent in America today
those same influences upon the student's mental, moral, and
physical development. This educational core is under attack from
many sides. There have been changes in the composition and
motivation of student bodies, in the primary emphases of curricula, in the
attitude of professors toward their responsibilities, and
of administrations and alumni toward the functions of their
institutions in American society.
Ethical Implications of Multiple Images of the University
University advancement policies
typically address issues regarding
gift-getting but rarely gift-making. The danger in this is twofold.
First, allowing techne to subsume esse fosters the ordering of
everything--including potential donors--merely as standing-reserve.
Second, by failing to acknowledge the ontology of
giving, such policies prevent man from the possibility of encountering the
essence of either giving or herself. A better approach
would be to honor goodness (bonum) whenever it is encountered. "Honoring" in
this
context means not only celebrating such encounters but also
seeking out and overcoming estrangement from goodness in
others and in one's self.
This secular moral-values system was learned during five decades
of education reform and conflict-resolving programs involving
hundreds of thousands of ugly Americans, angry foreign nationals, and
disillusioned high-school dropouts. Successes to the
extent of stopping deadly violence between various groups
revealed that key moral, physical, artistic, and mental values can
be activated rapidly, holistically, and on a mass scale to change
attitudes and establish peaceful relations. These few key values
respond like deep-seated species-preserving ties that unify us
beneath the social barriers of race, class, gender, and ethnic
hatreds of a thousand years.
A sustained program of education affects the way a student looks
at the world and therefore has some effect on the student's
character. Every decision and action taken by faculty and
administration provides instruction in ethics, at least by example.
It is essential that our educational and professional practices keep
the moral dimension in balance with the intellectual training that
we attempt to provide. In this paper we will outline a morally
reflective educational practice. A morally reflective educational
practice is one in which there is a consistency between the
philosophical and instructional goals and the day-to-day activities
both in and out of the classroom. Inevitably, questions of
university policy and the role of faculty and administrative leaders
in the development of a morally reflective educational practice
will be addressed.
Teachers and educational institutions have a duty to help people
become what they are--realize their potentials. This personalistic
idea is a stronger and more inspiring argument than the liberal
notion that it is unethical to discriminate. For instance, a young
woman who has a low self-esteem and severe difficulties in
realizing her potentials because of years of restricted upbringing
and teaching is the victim of a greater offence than the woman
who is discriminated against on a particular occasion. The former
offence cannot be legislated against and it is not easily undone--hence the
importance of imaginative ethical reflection.
Ethical Implications of Multiple Images of the University
Ethical Implications of Multiple Images of the University
The university is not often thought of as a "person." Yet, it is a
corporate entity having rights and responsibilities and does
function as a legal "person" under law. In the realm of ethics, the
line between legal and ethical "right and wrong," and between
what the Federal government terms "compliance" and what
ethicists consider "just," is not always clear. But the university
must respond to ethical as well as legal claims. By considering
the university as a "person," having a distinct institutional culture
and defined processes that often involve ethical decision-making,
it soon becomes clear that the usual standards used for accreditation nationwide
fall short of providing guidance for those involved
in day-to-day governance of academic institutions. This presentation will suggest
new directions for decisions requiring normative
institutional values.
Ethical Implications of Multiple Images of the University
This presentation will examine some of the ethical implications of
education. What is at stake in the paradigm shift in higher
education away from teaching and scholarship and towards
"student learning output?" What is happening, at the level of the
educational ethos, as universities become businesses?
This presentation will argue that the post-Cold War university has
a vastly more important cultural and political mission that is
international and global in scope. The presentation will suggest
a model for how this new mission can be pursued in a non-imperialistic mode. Dr.
Reynolds' thinking on these issues has
been highly influenced by Hunnington's new book on The Class
of Civilizations and the Coming World Order.
This paper looks at a case of sexual harassment on the JCCC
campus, how it affected the professor involved, and how the
administration, faculty, and students attempted to deal with the
problems this case presented.
Recent debates at UTK about the status of tenure have in the main
ignored an important fact: contrary to current claims, there is no
evidence of public outcry against tenure in the state of Tennessee.
This does not mean, however, that the claims on behalf of that
public opposition should therefore be dismissed. Just the reverse.
Such outcry as has arisen against tenure (from the Governor,
conservative newspaper columnists, and interested faculty) is
ideologically driven, and needs like all ideological activity to be
understood as symptomatic of real public perceptions that the
University community ignores to its peril. Debates over tenure
offer the possibility of understanding better the public image of
UTK, just as discussions about the process and the ethics of
awarding tenure can highlight the necessary revitalized role of
teaching in securing new status for the University.
A large percentage of college courses are now being taught by
part-time faculty. In fact, part-time instructors teach up to 38%
of all college and university classes. Most of these teachers teach
the basic courses that students take their first year or two in
college, the classes that give them their basic core of knowledge
for upper-level classes in which they will have to excel. The
members of the panel will offer a wide range of perspectives as
they explore the ethical implications associated with the use of
adjuncts.
To whom is the university--particularly the public university--responsible?
Among the groups to which the university may be
called upon to respond are students and their parents, other tuition
payers, taxpayers (and their theoretical representatives, the
trustees), research sponsors, potential employers, service clientele
(e.g., those served by Extension Service at a land-grant university),
professions/disciplines (which may have accrediting
standards), and the general citizenry of the state. These groups
often have different (and sometimes conflicting) demands and
expectations; likewise, official
and unofficial spokespersons for universities also sometimes give
different (and sometimes conflicting) messages. Essential
considerations include the role of and implications for teaching,
research, public service, and "the academy."
Attempts to re-establish institutional control of intercollegiate
athletics in order to restore their academic legitimacy has been the
focus of several national reform efforts. The faculty senate at
most institutions of higher education has authority over all
academic standards including the standards for intercollegiate
athletic participation. Faculty involvement has been minimal.
The problem has been identified as one of separation and
isolation. After brief statements regarding the moral and ethical
issues regarding the governance of intercollegiate athletics,
panelists will respond to questions.
The Women's Studies Program--at UTK and on other campuses--enables students
and faculty members to articulate the ethical and
political values that women can bring to communities. Classes,
lectures, and ongoing discussions form a public forum to promote
a critical examination of the university as one of the social
structures that have in the past silenced women's voices and
values. Further, women's studies courses and programs provide
one of the sites for transforming the university. Panelists will
focus upon the history of our local program and women in the
U.S., the writings of women who worked in the institutional
structures of the medieval era, as a model for today's students,
and the approaches involved in teaching the philosophies of
feminism.
Universities play host to conflicts that arise for a variety of
reasons: different views on the nature and mission of the institution, competing
priorities among various units, conflicting
perspectives on the best means for achieving certain goals. This
presentation explores the role that civility should play in the
management and resolution of these kinds of conflicts. Civility
embraces a generosity, tolerance and charity in public discourse
and personal interaction, qualities that stand in contrast to a
ruthless partisanship that can be characterized as intemperate and
overly zealous. To what extent, and for what reasons, would we
want to argue that civility should mark the way we do business in
a university? The focus is not on civility as an effective way to
advocate one's position, but on civility viewed as having a value
of its own, leading to the question of whether (and when) we
should, in the name of civility, do less than our best to persuade
the university to pursue what we think is the right course of
action.
times.
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