Emory
Report
February 25, 2008
Volume
60, Number 21
Tell us.
It matters.
The Emory Trust Line
(1-888-550-8850)
is a confidential service to
report fraud,
misconduct and
financial or policy violations.
Administered through an
independent company, the
Emory Trust Line is a toll-free,
24/7 telephone service that
allows
all University and
Healthcare faculty and
staff to report workplace
concerns regarding financial
matters.
The trust line is working
“exactly the way it was
intended to,” by offering
employees a process
to do the “right thing”
without fear of reprisal,
says Mike Mandl,
executive vice president
for finance and administration.
“It’s a valuable tool that
enables us to demonstrate
that we take employee
concerns seriously and
will take action to address them.”
Guiding ethical principles
As an ethically engaged
institution, Emory University
affirms the conviction that
education exerts a powerful
force to enable and ennoble
the individual, and that the
privilege of education
entails an obligation to use
knowledge for the common
good.
Get acquainted with Emory’s
Statement of Guiding Ethical
Principles at
www.emory.edu/
PRESIDENT/
Statement/index.htm.
Center for Ethics
The Center for Ethics
supports ethical research,
education and outreach
through signature programs
in servant leadership, health
sciences and science and
society. Learn more at
www.ethics.emory.edu.
The Center’s annual
faculty ethics seminar set
for May 15 this year will
explore “From Discovery
to Implementation: Ethics
and Translational Research.”
For details, contact John Banja
at jbanja@emory.edu.
TCP dialogues
Emory’s Transforming
Community Project is a
five-year initiative to
document the University’s
past and confront current
challenges around the
issue of race.
To add your voice, visit
www.transform.emory.edu.
Teaching
workshops
“Interdisciplinary
Approaches to Teaching:
Ethically Engaged
Classrooms”
is a series
of faculty
workshops
featuring panel discussions
led by Masse-Martin/NEH
Distinguished Teaching
Chair Mark Risjord.
The next workshop, set
for March 17 at 4 p.m.,
will discuss the challenges
and opportunities of
training future teachers
of the humanities.
To learn more, contact
Stephanie Solomon at
ssolom2@LearnLink.
Emory.Edu.
Innovative efforts
Many Emory divisions
have developed ways
to communicate and
encourage ethical stewardship.
For example, managers
in the Office of Finance
Administration have
compiled an FAQ document
to help guide all staff when
faced with everyday issues
involving accountability
and use of Emory resources.
When completed, the document
will be distributed as appropriate.
How have you resolved an ethical dilemma
in your work or studies at Emory?
Please share your experience with Emory Report for future stories
related to ethical engagement. Contact Editor Kim Urquhart at
404-727-9507 or kim.urquhart@emory.edu.
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Emory
Report homepage
February 25, 2008
Vocabulary of values forms bond
By NANCY SEIDEMAN
Ask people what image immediately comes to mind when they hear the word “ethics” and you’ll get rather disparate responses. “Conduct,” “diversity,” “bull,” “politics,” “doing the right thing.”
But before the response often comes a long pause. Thinking about ethics can put you on another plane all together. How do you talk about ethics without sounding self-righteous at one extreme, or implying that something needs to be “fixed” at the other? Or when, as a community, as an organization, you self-identify as being “ethically engaged?”
Finding common language and common ground is one way. Emory community members are faced with ethical issues every day, whether studying for an exam, overseeing a budget, advising students, interacting with colleagues, or exercising freedom of expression.
“I don’t think you can teach people to be ethical, I think it has to come from within,” says Bob Hascall, vice president of Campus Services. “But I think you can raise awareness of what’s ethically acceptable in your organization. You need to keep the topic of ethics on the front burner of everyone’s mind and talk about the gray areas: When you are faced with a particular situation, how do you handle it?”
President Jim Wagner says that what is ethically acceptable for a community needs to be rooted in values that inform all decision-making. In the University’s case it’s Emory’s Statement of Guiding Ethical Principles at www.emory.edu/PRESIDENT/Statement/index.htm.
“If the University needs to take action on a particular issue, we question if our proposed course aligns with our stated principles,” he says. A “principled leadership” approach, says Wagner, reinforces Emory’s core values and gives the community a common framework in facing ethical dilemmas.
Wagner clearly delights in the fact that Emory is “a place that talks unabashedly about religion without being judgmental. There is an ease with the vocabulary of values that encourages such conversation.”
Vocabulary was at the heart a series of campus forums that Wagner and Mike Mandl, executive vice president for finance and administration, led last year. They asked attendees what principles contribute to good relationships and a community in which its members thrive.
The list of desired traits called out by the audience were typical across the board: words such as honesty, candor, loyalty, fun, respectful, reciprocal and connectivity.
The development and nurturing of these characteristics, says Wagner, creates the culture — the ethos — that binds a community together in common purpose and mutual trust.
This trust is crucial, according to a recent Presidential Task Force on Ethical Stewardship of University Resources, in maintaining the confidence of “parents, students, donors, government agencies and foundations who entrust their children, their futures and their financial resources to our care.”
Law Professor Frank S. Alexander, task force chair, emphasizes that “each one of us has a shared responsibility” to be good stewards.
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