Graduate Students and Ethics

Although last year’s Duke MBA student cheating scandal and the September 2006 Rutgers survey may seem like old news, it has since spurred conversations and initiatives on topics of ethics in Graduate Schools and programs across the nation—including those at the University of Cincinnati.  The Rutgers survey, published in the Academy of Management Learning & Education is based on 5300+ graduate students’ self-reports from 32 universities.  It found that the following percentage of respondents in these disciplines had cheated:

·      56% in Business programs;

·      54% in Engineering programs;

·      49% in Medical and Health Care programs;

·      45% in Law programs;

·      39% in Social Science and Humanities programs.

Howard Tolley, Professor of Political Science and a leader in UC’s Academic Integrity Campaign, identifies plagiarism as the most common ethical issue facing students.  However falsification of data, conflicts of interest and sexual harassment among others, still rank high on higher education’s laundry list of ethical concerns.   Ethics continues to be a hot-button issue and the Council of Graduate Schools’ commitment to their Responsible Conduct of Research Initiatives.  The initiative is supported by the National Science Foundation and works with universities in developing ethics education as a cornerstone to graduate student instruction. 

UC’s Graduate School has also been working with other campus organizations to keep the conversation going.  Last May, the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning collaborated with the Graduate School to bring Dr. Catherine Sherron, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Thomas More College (also a UC alum), to campus for the Ethics Symposium.  Over 30 students and faculty explored ethical questions in research, teaching, and syllabus-building through the lens of well-known case studies and personal experiences.  Although some graduate programs have built ethics education into their curriculums, 75% of UC students who evaluated the symposium agreed that students in their programs need to have more opportunities to learn about the many components of ethics and ethical decision-making.    

The Graduate Student Development Center is continuing its ethics education by offering a workshop this month, presented by Dr. Tolley, on Ethical Questions in Academia.  During the workshop, Dr. Tolley says that he hopes to promote “. . . an improved comprehension of when to quote and cite resources used for research papers, theses, and dissertations” as well as an awareness about related online resources.  

Please visit the following links for more information

http://gradschool.unc.edu/publications/ethics.html

http://www.grad.umn.edu/ethics/

http://www.utexas.edu/ogs/ethics/  (This site provides online modules in different areas of ethics concerning graduate students.)