Can business ethics be taught?

Though the late August sun blankets the entire Houston metropolitan area, no one feels the heat quite like the grim figure making his way down the courthouse steps. Every camera lens is focused on the dark-haired man with the steel-set jaw, and every flashbulb reflects in his expensive rimless glasses.

Michael Kopper, former Enron executive and Duke University class of 1986, is in very hot water. He has just pleaded guilty to multiple criminal charges of fraud and conspiracy, and he has agreed to provide insider details into the dirty dealings that brought the world's sixth-largest energy company financially to its knees and stranded thousands of employees. In exchange for his cooperation, Kopper has made a deal that may mitigate the 25-year prison sentence he could otherwise face.

Twelve hundred miles away in Durham, the heat is also palpable and oppressive. Sixteen hundred freshmen have just invaded East Campus, unpacked what of their former lives could be fit into boxes and bid adieu to their misty-eyed parents. In two days, each of these students, surrounded by peers and under the watchful gaze of the Chapel, will sign the Duke Honor Code. In doing so, they will pledge honesty and integrity in academic pursuits. If current trends continue, over the course of the next year roughly 400 Duke students will be charged with violation of University policy, and among them about 40 will be caught cheating or plagiarizing.

Is there a connection between academic honesty and professional ethics? Along the long road from East Campus to the shiny high-rises of corporate America, what happens to the Honor Code? Can ethics be taught and retained or must they necessarily be lost in the shuffle of a dog-eat-dog world?

Professors and administrators disagree with the criticism that most students arrive at college in an ethically inflexible state.

"When you look at a place where you can teach ethics, teaching academic integrity is a great example of [doing so]," says Diane Waryold, executive director of the Center for Academic Integrity. The CAI is the 10-year-old brainchild of a handful of educators who sought to restore the discussion of ethics within academia. Now a consortium of over 200 schools, the center is based at Duke.

"College is an incredibly formative period," says Elizabeth Kiss, director of the Kenan Institute of Ethics. "It is a time when [young people] redefine their vocational aspirations... when a community that [teaches ethics] well can make an impact. It can be a very powerful time."

The Kenan Institute of Ethics, established five years ago as the Kenan Ethics Program, is Duke's experiment in restoring moral standards to the academic environment at the University. The institute has been involved in initiatives both in and out of the classroom--including the formation of Curriculum 2000's Ethical Inquiry requirement, implementation of the "disagreement, deliberation and community" theme of the University Writing Program and support for service-learning courses. The institute is also involved with initiatives ranging from the Race, Sex, and God program series to the Interfaith Dialogue Project to Venture Grants for Social Entrepreneurship.

Kacie Wallace, associate dean for judicial affairs, notes the University has recently adopted new policies that attempt to "promote trust among students and faculty." A professor can now deal with a first-time offense personally rather than referring the student to Judicial Affairs. In the past, she says, some professors have been reluctant to turn students in because of the possible consequences, which ranging from probation to expulsion. At the same time, faculty will no longer be required to proctor exams. The changes are meant to put more responsibility on individuals, for both student and faculty.

"We're trying to say 'this is all of our responsibility,'" says Wallace.

Students face a certain set of ethical problems within the University walls, but after graduation, an entirely new set of problems arise. While the two are linked, experience in real-world situations is valuable. To this end, the Kenan Institute and the Hart Leadership Program support a number of service-learning initiatives at Duke, including LEAPS (Learning Through Experience, Action, Partnership, and Service) and SOL (Service Opportunities in Leadership).

The five-year-old LEAPS program was founded by two students who "felt they were being cheated in their Duke education because they were only getting classroom theory," says Betsy Alden, coordinator of the service-learning program at the Institute, who currently teaches a class called Women as Leaders. Students in the class spend two hours each week mentoring disadvantaged girls at a local middle school, connecting the larger community to the classroom experience.

"It's the best class I've taken at Duke," says sophomore Jill Hopman, who plans to take another service learning class in the spring. "I wish all classes at Duke could benefit from this.... I think you learn a lot more from service learning because you're learning from real-life experience."

Alden describes the program as "more than learning by doing, it is learning by doing and thinking about doing."

Though LEAPS now boasts 250 students, Alden is clear that the program still has room to expand. For professors considering teaching a service-learning class, she says, "there is no inherent reward within the Duke system. They have to carve time out of something else... so we have to provide the incentives." Such incentives may include tying the professor's research into the course.

Kiss points out that "it is very easy to argue to business people that ethical responsibility is important, since ethical failure plays a part in corporate collapse."

Convincing students that ethics is an important issue involves showing them how it is a practical one. Duke offers a handful of classes addressing ethical issues beyond the university.

Daniel Vallero, director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Human Values, teaches a course called Ethics in Professions. Rather than placing idealized values on a pedestal, his STHV class emphasizes their practicality in a professional setting.

"We look at case studies that often have elements of failure," says Vallero, who is also an adjunct assistant professor of civil engineering. "More than just a failure of science, but a failure of humanity.... If a building falls down it does so because it follows Newton's Laws, but also because of sins of omission."

The STHV program's goal is to bridge the gap between science and the humanities, forcing students to consider the ethical implications of actions in the science professions.

"Society gives us a lot of freedom and respect. As professionals, we 'profess' to know something," he says. "When somebody goes to a doctor or engineer they don't have to know about the physical sciences... we have a social contract with our professionals."

Religion Professor Wesley Kort would like to see the discussion of professional ethics expanded to include religious work as well as work in other departments.

"The worth of such a course is obvious," he says. "Students need to know what kinds of things they will encounter in the daily practice of their professions. Our department in particular would be a natural for a class like that."

Kort notes that many of the psychological problems experienced in high-stress careers are related to the experience of disillusionment with the practices and standards of a given field. Among these problems he includes depression, burn-out, and substance abuse.

"We need to ask in what ways are the professions themselves constructed that allows regrettable things to happen? People go into their professions and are surprised by what they find," he says. "The work seems to be only taxing and depleting in effect."

In addition to teaching ethics in the classroom, the interaction at the University itself plays a role in shaping of ethical values.

From Enron and WorldCom to Adelphia and Xerox, the recent spate of corporate scandals has drawn attention to the ethical failings of the business world. Preparing students for that world is the job of the undergraduate and graduate schools they attend, and academic integrity is central to this goal.

"We believe that academic integrity is the bridge to professional ethics," Vallero says. "What you learn in college is a test for the rest of your life."

In making the jump from education to a career, students take with them both knowledge and behaviors.

"I think that students who cheat in college... are more likely to do things in a career that are dishonest," says sophomore Erica Smolow.

Waryold agrees that students who are taught values such as academic integrity are "more likely to be honest in their profession.... An education earned dishonestly makes a professional less able to meet the demands of a career.... In some cases it can even be life threatening."

Certainly an issue not unique to Duke, the question of academic integrity has made its way into headlines recently as well.

A Nov. 2, 2002, New York Times article declares "With Student Cheating on the Rise, More Colleges Are Turning to Honor Codes." The story cites a CAI survey that found 30 percent of students said "cheating during tests or exams" occurred "often or very often."

Duke has had an honor code since 1993, and next fall the University will begin implementation of a new Duke Community Standard that incorporates academic and nonacademic aspects of student life into a single code.

Freshman Christine Armstrong feels the tradition of signing the Honor Code, begun only two years ago, is a good idea. Other students are less convinced of its utility.

"I think if people want to cheat, they are going to cheat," says junior David Chen. "I think people's attitude is that 'I need to do this to get where I want to get'... there's a sense of self-preservation."

When asked whether she is aware of cheating on campus, Armstrong says she is fairly unaware of cheating as a campus phenomenon. "I haven't really seen it," she says.

Exactly what constitutes dishonesty and what standards the University ascribes to, though, are topics of disagreement among students, such as the issue of collaboration. "I know people who would do the homework assignment individually, but then check it with other students," Chen says. "There's always some gray area."

Senior Beth King disagrees. She feels that professors "are pretty up front and honest with explaining the Duke Honor Code." King is likewise optimistic about the ethics of the average Duke student.

"It would be naive to assume that cheating doesn't go on [but] at least with my friends, I find that they have a lot of integrity," she says.

Anecdotal evidence, though, is limited. A 2001 study conducted by the Center for Academic Integrity found that 11 percent of undergraduates anonymously self-reported having copied answers from another student during a test while at Duke. These numbers (along with a number of other indicators) had dropped substantially in similar surveys from 1990 (28 percent) and 1995 (19 percent).

It seems that the work of reform is never done, and administrators are looking to continue the process of integrating an ethical curriculum within the academic one. While Duke is making strides in re-affirming an ethical code, there are miles yet to travel and those 11 percent yet to reach.

In light of the collapses of Enron and other businesses, it is clear that ethics do matter outside of the ivory tower. The ethical dilemmas faced at universities are preparation for difficult situations students will encounter in professional life. Graduates will face difficult choices, and whether or not they follow the path of Michael Kopper may have ties to the ethical climate encountered at the University. The standards of conduct learned and practiced in college are not forgotten after graduation.