Not only does it offer ridiculous stories about “John, a graduate student, and Fatima, his best friend who is also the Dean.”
Not only does it suggest that everybody needs to spy on their co-workers and report them whenever they leave 30 minutes early or check their Facebook page on their office computer.
Not only does it tell me that if somebody related to the University bequeaths their sailboat to me, it’s ethical to accept but if somebody offers me a free meal costing $80 at a fair it isn’t.
Not only does it humiliate me by informing me at length that accepting bribes from students is not a good idea.
Not only does it rob me of 40 minutes out of a very busy day.
It also dares to condescend to me by telling me “Now is a good time to take a break and stretch out.” Can I at least be left in peace to stretch out or not whenever I feel like, not whenever some bored bureaucrat tells me to?
Clarissa's Blog 
It could have been worse. You could have had a pause-sante instead of a break to stretch out.
Seriously though, this is very condescending. The only training of this sort that was useful to me was about students with special needs.
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I’m a special needs professor who has a special need not to be hassled by ethics trainers.
Where is my presumption of innocence??
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Those trainings totally discriminate against criminal sociopaths.
Also:
Student: “Hi Fatima! Good to see you around! How’s my best friend in the whole world?”
Dean: “Just fine, John. Want to come hang out and watch the game on Sunday at my place?”
S: “Totally! I’ll bring the beer and chips!”
D: “Oh, sorry, I can’t accept gifts from a student I am not just your friend I am the dean it is unethical.”
S: “What that’s bullshit this is chips and beer for a football game not a bribe to get me off academic suspension.”
D: “Okay but there’s another problem. You might slip me a red or a roofer or whatever and make me sign off on your reinstatement form while I am incapable of giving informed consent and then you might also harrass me sexually.”
S: “What the hell Fatima not only are you my friend but I am gay as Rock Hudson. Plus I’m doing great in my classes and I’m not on academic suspension.”
D: “I’m sorry I have to suspend you now for disclosing private information regarding your status as a student without signing the proper release form.”
S: “You’re fucking loony.”
D: “Now I have to have you arrested for assault.”
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This is brilliant!!! Why can’t you make these trainings instead of the boring people who make them nowadays?
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
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One time I was at one of those safety trainings where they teach you not to wash your hair with carbolic acid or stack a bunch of lawn chairs to use as a ladder, and the video they showed us was all professional comedians doing slapstick routines. It was pretty funny when a guy tripped over a fold in the carpet and fell down a hole that was there for some reason. The sexual harrassment training video that came later in the day was downright weird. Basically a bunch of this guy’s co-workers threatened to gang rape him because they thought his shirt was a little gay.
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I knew a professor who jokingly included this grading scale in the syllabus:
A 93-100% or $200
B 80-93% or $150
C 70-79% or $100
D 65-70% or $75
Several students did not get the joke and offered him money. One student reported him and the university had to investigate.
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Wow, what a cheap professor…
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This post is why I like working for/with Japanese. They don’t have the culturally crude approach of hitting you over the head with an ax just because they want to talk to you.
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How is it that an academic system that teaches life is merely a product of TIME and CHANCE, teaches that there is RIGHT and WRONG? If there is such a thing as “ETHICS” or “MORALITY”, there must be a “MORAL LAW-GIVER.” If there is a “MORAL LAW-GIVER” we better make some adjustments to the WORLDVIEW that we are presenting to students beginning in kindergarten. If we are just an accident, if bio-evolution is the truth, nobody has the right to tell me what’s right and wrong. Whatever benefits me MUST BE RIGHT! So there…
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What the heck guy. I think Clarissa’s university is like to get sued if it sends people to church for ethics training. (plus there are social, biological, and philosophical reasons for morality just sayin).
What I don’t get is they call it “ethics training” and then there’s zip about Aristotle.
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It isn’t about ethics, either. How ethical is it to rat out your colleagues? It’s more about our legal obligations as state employees.
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“How is it that an academic system that teaches life is merely a product of TIME and CHANCE”
-I haven’t encountered such an academic system, so I’m not the person to ask about it.
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I’ve had enduring dialogues (over a number of years) with Nietzschean disciples who have acted upon this conclusion. A lot of these have ended up really unhappy on the basis of their principle of life: “Whatever benefits me MUST BE RIGHT! So there…”. Their interpretation of “whatever benefits me” turns out to be too narrow. For instance, does it “benefit you” should you choose to address people in a hostile and aggressive manner? The hypothesis is worth testing out. Perhaps it will give you that forbidden fruit, social dominance, at very little cost? More likely, people will wake up to you sooner rather than later to ostracize you.
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Right and wrong are just a consequence of the axioms you choose to apply in any given context. We have right and wrong answers in maths, these are just a consequence of the axioms we choose to use.
We even have alternative sets of axioms which in some cases give different results to those in general use.
Think Euclid’s fifth postulate and the controversy that raged over that for a couple of millennium.
Thus ethics training need only teach a set of axioms and the context in which they are to be used.
Your rant about there being an absolute right and wrong (and I suppose you think this was decided by some god being) is really a separate issue of philosophy I would point you at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_absolutism
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