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Articles: Ethics Professors (Adventures at a Catholic College pt.4) |
Posted by
tallidaho on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 05:29 AM PST
Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a Catholic college that was somewhere in the middle of the "liberal" scale of Catholic colleges. This college had a decent mix of science and non-science offerings, including Communications, Biology, Theology, and even Philosophy and Ethics. At this school, nothing bad ever happened, no students EVER had sex, and nobody was ever homosexual. Then into this perfect universe came some "odd" people.
They started exploring starting a Gay-Straight Alliance. To explore viewpoints on this issue, the students, with support of some staff members, began a discussion in the school newspaper, in a monthly column called "Ethics on the Hill"-- the philosophy department's forum to discuss ethical issues. One student and two staff would write for this column.
The staff members that would write their articles would submit directly to the newspaper. The student, however, had to submit her paper through the Philosophy Club advisor. This shouldn't have been a problem-- she just had to submit so the article could be checked for spelling, grammar, etc. (Because, apparently, this school does not trust it's own educational abilities.) After working for three full weeks on a three-hundred word essay, running it by numerous staff and student editors to make sure the tone, the comments, everything was PERFECT, or as perfect as a piece of writing can be, the student e-mailed the professor her article with a note saying if he had any questions, comments, changes, etc, to PLEASE contact her via phone or e-mail during Thanksgiving break.
This professor, apparently, had other ideas. The author's friend, who happens to be Philosophy Club President, stopped by the professor's office two days later, one day before the submission deadline, to make sure that he had received the e-mail. He had, and he had also rewritten the article so much it was barely recognizable. The President sat in the professor's office for four hours, trying to salvage the article. It was then the president that e-mailed the author with the final article and a copy of her original.
Was the overall opinion of the article changed? Somewhat. Was the tone, the attitude, the sound, changed? In almost every way. The professor still has yet to say anything to the author, even though the paper has been printed and the author has asked him if he changed it.
This professor teaches ethics at this school. Not only teaches it, but is the head of that major concentration.
The Ethics on the Hill article is not the only exploit of this professor. He is also known for giving students 24 hours to complete final drafts of rough drafts it took him three weeks to return. Anti-feminist ideals are his baby-- to the point he will grade students down if they write pro-feminist opinions. Along with all of this, his syllabus reads with mostly 3 words- "at my discretion." Grades, attendance, EVERYTHING, is determined by his personal, does-he-like-you opinion.
Delving a bit deeper into history, this professor also has a long history, before he got married and had 7 kids, of dating whatever student struck his fancy at the time, as well as having foggy background in possibly being involved in a few students leaving the school.
Is this man qualified to teach Ethics? Should he? Is what he does Ethical? Apparently so, according to the Perfect School Where Nothing Ever Happens.
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Average Rating : 4.4
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Ethics Professors (Adventures at a Catholic College pt.4) | Login/Create an account | 5 Comments |
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Re: Ethics Professors (Adventures at a Catholic College pt.4)
by RavensSoul (TheRavensMuse@aol.com)
on Dec 22, 2003 - 10:08 AM
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http://hometown.aol.com/theravensmuse/myhomepage1.html
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It's a pathetic world we live in. It's pathetic that the very people who are supposed to be teaching us and preparing us for the future act in such a way. Maybe it is, in some form, preparation for what we're going to encounter. For lack of a better comment, it sucks. And it's bullshit that people like that can get away with what they do. A cousin of mine went through a similar situation at her college. It's everywhere, unfortunately.
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Re: Ethics Professors (Adventures at a Catholic College pt.4)
by Devin (devin-at-vibechild-dot-com)
on Dec 22, 2003 - 10:53 AM
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http://devin.vibechild.com/
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As I understand it, the difference between morals and ethics is that morals apply to an individual and ethics apply to a group. What is or is not ethical depends on the group, and nobody outside of it - in the same way that what is moral depends on the individual and nobody outside of them. For instance, for pirates it is completely ethical to kill, steal, rape, and pilliage - but it is not ethical to mutiny against your captain. For teachers I've noticed, it's ethical to do pretty much anything regarding the students, but it's not ethical to make the school look bad to parents or people donating money - and it is not ethical to damage the illusion of authority they have over the students. Unfortunately, since you are not part of their group, you don't have much say in what is ethical to them. But then again, they are not part of your group, so anything they tell you about what is or isn't ethical is just information.
An ethics class should be for learning the ethics of different groups of people. This is important stuff to know. Learning ethics means precicely that. It does not imply 'conforming your values to those of others' - it just means learning what other people's values are. It sounds like he's an excellent ethics professor. He's managed to teach you all about that kind of ethics system in a way that you won't forget. You wouldn't have learned this from someone else.
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Re: Ethics Professors (Adventures at a Catholic College pt.4)
by Anya on Dec 24, 2003 - 11:08 AM
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http://kirashi.envy.nu
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Well, it's arguable. What the man used to be may not be what he is now. However, I have a thing against people who strongly use favoritism. Do not get me wrong, we are all guilty of a -little- of it, but someone using it to the extremes seriously has problems.
I think that the man shouldn't be teaching Ethics mainly because of him letting his biases get in the way of his grading. Maybe he is ethical in his own way, but as Devin pointed out, the Ethics class should teach Ethics that are universal, not strictly his views (or whatever religion he supports). Then again, one can argue that since the college isn't secular, they're allowed to enforce whatever beliefs they have on their students. It's expected.
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