Academic Ethics: Problems and Materials on Professional Conduct and Shared Governance

Academic professionals are expected to restrain self-interest, promote the ideals of public service, and maintain high standards of performance, while society grants the profession autonomy to regulate itself through peer review. Hamilton conveys the need for ethical leadership from within the peer collegium–leadership that will foster a culture of high aspiration and peer review.

Academic professionals are expected to restrain self-interest, promote the ideals of public service, and maintain high standards of performance, while society grants the profession autonomy to regulate itself through peer review. Hamilton conveys the need for ethical leadership from within the peer collegium–a leadership that will foster a culture of high aspiration and peer review.

This book suggests that the umbrella academic organizations step forward and draft a model code of ethics for the profession of higher education. Further discussion reveals how such attempts become difficult in face of the market’s relentless pressure to frame the institution-student relationship in the economic terms of provider and customer. The book also offers an analysis of academic tradition, academic freedom, and the principles of professional conduct and shared governance. Typical problems in academic life are presented, each followed by questions designed to stimulate seminar-type discussion. Appendices contain a proposed code of ethics as well as AAUP statements on the subject.