Abstract
The aim of this paper is to articulate the basic elements of a comprehensive ethic of academic administration, organized around a set of three cardinal virtues: commitment to the good of the institution; good administrative judgment; and conscientiousness in discharging the duties of the office. In addition to explaining this framework and defending its adequacy, the paper develops an account of the nature of integrity, and argues that the three cardinal virtues of academic administration can be captured in the concept of integrity in academic administration. The Aristotelian basis for this framework is summarized, and its central ideas are illustrated through a variety of applications.
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Notes
- 1.
My use of the word “specific” requires some explanation. I distinguish generic ethical virtues, or virtues of common morality, from “specific” ethical virtues associated with specific professional or other roles. To say the latter are “specific” to some role is not meant to imply that they are unique to that role. They may also pertain to other roles that are relevantly similar.
- 2.
I am grateful to Peter Markie for pointing out that it might be objected at this point that failures of administrative judgment are often regarded as blameworthy, but not as ethical lapses. This is true, but answerable as an objection to classifying good administrative judgment as an ethical virtue. Not every failure to exemplify an ethical virtue is an instance of behaving unethically. Virtues such as good judgment, courage, self-control, and loyalty enable their possessors to do the right thing in the face of complexity, danger, tempting pleasure, and the expectations arising from relationships. Yet, beyond the observance of certain requirements they are ideals, and people who possess the virtues but fail to exhibit them perfectly may fall short of the ideal in ways that do not constitute being unethical. In the case of judgment, it is not unethical to simply run up against the limits of one’s imagination, memory, or capacity for sustained analysis. Yet, some failures of good judgment involve moral blindness, callousness, or unreasonable disregard for rules or other ethically significant considerations. In those instances, failures of good judgment will be ethically blameworthy. It might be objected now that I have missed the point, that a person may be disqualified from having the virtue of good judgment (or good administrative judgment) by reason of having terrible judgment, but not on account of any ethical deficiencies. However, if this is grounds for declining to classify good administrative judgment as a distinctively ethical virtue, then there are similar grounds for refusing to classify any hybrid virtue as ethical. This won’t do, because there are good reasons to regard all true moral virtues as hybrids to which good judgment is essential. In any case, it is not essential to the view I am outlining that good administrative judgment be an ethical virtue in any strict sense. It is enough that it be a virtue which is specific and basic to academic administration, as well as “distinctively ethical” or rich in ethical content. If that content is conveniently encapsulated in the idea of good judgment, then it is an idea that can play a useful organizing role in an ethic of AA.
- 3.
I do this with apologies to Aristotle for importing the language of “cardinal virtues” and mapping this language onto the “phases” of conduct.
- 4.
- 5.
The distinction between habitual and true virtues is often not observed in public debate, as in the matter of whether the 9/11 hijackers were courageous. Presumably they were in the former sense, but not the latter.
- 6.
I will follow convention in citing the Nicomachean Ethics as NE, and the Politics as Pol., using the book (VI), Chapter 8, page (1142), column (a), and line (13–15) numbers of Immanuel Bekker’s 1831 edition of the Greek texts. This system of pagination appears in the margins of most modern translations. The translations relied on here are those in Barnes 1984. The “universal” element in phronêsis has been played down, even denied, by some commentators, sometimes in connection with efforts to construct radically particularistic forms of virtue ethics. This universal element is repeatedly noted by Aristotle, and emphasized quite emphatically in NE X.9.
- 7.
As Arthur Applbaum has taken great pains to demonstrate, “Institutions and the roles they create ordinarily cannot mint moral permissions to do what otherwise would be morally prohibited” (Applbaum, 1999: 3).
- 8.
On the obligation to provide explanations, as an aspect of interpersonal respect and especially in the context of established relationships, see Curren (2000: 21–30).
- 9.
A domain of educational administration for which formal codes of ethics have been drawn up is service on local school boards. New York State’s General Municipal Law (§§806–808) requires all school boards within its jurisdiction to adopt ethics codes, and in 2005 the New York State School Board Association promulgated a sample code (“Sample Policy”), which the various districts have followed closely. Its focus is conflicts of interest, gifts, and confidentiality. These can all be fairly described as pertaining to proper use of the powers of the office. See NYSSBA (2007: §2:81).
- 10.
This scheme is adapted from Dennett (1971).
- 11.
See Duderstadt (2000), French (2004), Shulman and Bowen (2001). French reviews a set of university mission statements and argues persuasively that none of the standard defenses of the educational value of athletics apply to high-profile intercollegiate sports. He offers as an alternative the unconvincing suggestion that it is part of the mission of universities to provide the public with entertainment (as if there were any shortage of that). Duderstadt explodes the myth that television and ticket revenues cover the costs of high-profile athletic programs. Shulman and Bowen document the negative academic impact of intercollegiate athletics at Ivy League and other Division III institutions. See also, Brand (2006), which defends the educational value of intercollegiate athletics on the grounds that “the mental and the physical should both be part of a sound education” (17), but in doing so ignores French’s most potent argument: If participation in athletics has educational value, the investments in intercollegiate athletics would be better spent on intramural sports or club programs (French, 2004: 3).
- 12.
See Duderstadt (2000), French (2004), Shulman and Bowen (2001). Duderstadt points out that there are still some sports in which it is possible to compete at a high level and be an exemplary student. These do not include Division I football and basketball. Even in Division III the admissions standards are much lower for athletes, and athletes academically under-perform not only their non-athlete peers, but also relative to students of comparable academic ability. They comprise a much larger proportion of the student body at Divisions III schools, and at some institutions have a more divisive impact on the student culture of their schools.
- 13.
A good example is UCLA, which began as a normal school with a female student body and launched its football team in order to attract male students.
- 14.
A prior, much discussed tension exists between the research and teaching functions of modern universities. To say there is a tension is not to insist on any fundamental incompatibility. Rather it is to note that the two may in some respects compete with another, and may do so at some ethical risk in some circumstances. Corporate funding of research poses a particular risk of this kind, when the terms of research funding preclude or substantially delay the publication of results essential to doctoral dissertations.
- 15.
I am indebted to Susan Gibbons’ knowledge of this literature.
- 16.
There are, indeed, graduate programs in higher education studies in which the research in question is taught, but it would be unrealistic to think that these could play a substantial role in the preparation of academic administrators, who will generally have held faculty positions. It is less unrealistic to think that academic administrators might maintain some familiarity with research on higher education through authoritative sources such as the Almanac of Higher Education. See e.g., Wechsler (2007).
- 17.
Concerning personal presence, Paul Olscamp offers an instructive example of a university president returning to campus immediately when a controversy erupted (Olscamp, 2003: 96–103). By way of contrast, the infamous shooting of thirteen students by members of the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University in 1970 may be partly attributed to its president’s failure to cut short a trip and return to his campus to ensure the adequacy of communication with faculty and students when his campus was put under marshal law. Many students and faculty returned to campus after spring break on the morning of the shootings, and assembled on the hill they didn’t know they had been forbidden to assemble on, hoping to learn why the campus had been placed under marshal law. (For granting me an interview about her recollection of these events, I owe thanks to Margaret Gordon, who was not involved in the anti-war demonstrations, but was knocked to the ground between Allison Krause, who was killed, and Douglas Wrentmore, who was wounded, in Prentice Hall parking lot, 330 ft from where the guardsmen fired.) For a general chronology and details of President White’s role, see Lewis and Hensley (1998), Stone (1971), Tompkins & Anderson (1971).
- 18.
- 19.
As Julian Lewis, a shadow defense minister in the UK, was quoted as saying in connection with a furor in 2007 over the Oxford Union’s invitations to a pair of far right speakers, “The right to free speech should not guarantee access to privileged platforms” (Smith, 2007). Such access is unavoidably selective, and it is no violation of free speech to select speakers with an eye to academic value. The matter of who controls access is, of course, sensitive. The best alternative might be to combine student expressions of interest with a peer review process, relying on faculty members with relevant expertise to judge what is and is not an academically live issue or position.
- 20.
See Dearden (1984: 85–86) on behavioral and epistemic criteria of controversiality or tests of what is controversial.
- 21.
Robert Pennock (2007) provides an illuminating overview of the history and tactics of the creationist movement.
- 22.
The AAUP statement, Academic Freedom and Outside Speakers (AAUP, 2007) provides reasonable guidance on (avoiding) cancellations, and defends the academic value of student and faculty autonomy in inviting speakers. My suggestions here are consistent with the statement’s key points, while emphasizing a role for administrators in communicating academic values in connection with setting policy, and a role for faculty in collaborating with student groups to ensure that invitations substantially advance academic purposes.
- 23.
For their perceptive and very helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter, I would like to thank Elaine Englehardt, Bob Holmes, Bob Ladenson, Peter Markie, Michael Pritchard, Laura Purdy, Emily Robertson, Tyll van Geel, and Harold Wechsler. I also owe thanks to Brian Schrag and Michael Pritchard, the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, and the Poynter Center, for organizing, sponsoring, and hosting the workshop on Ethics and Academic Administrators (Indiana University, Bloomington, August 17–18, 2006), which provided an ideal setting and stimulus for my work on this topic.
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Curren, R. (2009). Cardinal Virtues of Academic Administration. In: Englehardt, E.E., Pritchard, M.S., Romesburg, K.D., Schrag, B.E. (eds) The Ethical Challenges of Academic Administration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2841-9_6
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