2006 Book and Resource Reviews
ters a copy of The Compleat Academic, but I will
also remind them that no matter how important it
is to plan for a successful career, it is even more
essential to strive for a personal definition of a live
well lived.
The Compleat Academic ends with a sobering
reminder that at the end of the road, no matter how
distinguished your career, junior faculty might be
impatient for you to move on and free up space,
and a few years after retirement people might no
longer remember who you are. The book does not
shrink from the reality that it can help you win the
rat race, but that it remains your unique personal
challenge to find out how not to become a rat.
REFERENCES
American Psychological Association. 2004. Project Syllabus.
Available at http://www.lemoyne.edu/OTRP/projectsyllabus.
html
Frost, P. J., & Taylor, M. S. (Eds.). 1996. Rhythms of academic life:
Personal accounts of careers in academia. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage.
The Ethics of Teaching: A Casebook (2nd
Ed.) by Patricia Keith-Spiegel, Bernard E.
Whitley, Jr., Deborah Ware Balogh, David
V. Perkins, and Arno F. Wittig. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002.
296 pages, soft cover.
Reviewed by Gerald D. Klein, Rider University.
The authors of The Ethics of Teaching are con-
cerned with the values of college and university
instructors and their behavior both in and outside
of the classroom. The book should be read and
reflected upon by all faculty. As a tenured and
experienced university teacher, I found much of
value in this book. Along with descriptions of mul-
tiple methods for handling recurring issues, I also
found reinforcement for continuing many practices
I currently use.
It is especially important that copies of this book
find their way to those who are new to college
teaching such as new tenure track faculty and the
graduate assistants and adjuncts who seem to be
shouldering an increasing proportion of instruc-
tion as institutional budgets shrink. I agree with
the authors: These individuals have been un-
evenly and often poorly prepared to confront the
ethical issues arising frequently both in and out-
side of the classroom that are the focus of this
book. Further, new faculty are under pressure to
127
perform well in scholarly as well as teaching roles
and secure reappointment or tenure—pressures
that can affect their preparation for and behavior
in the classroom as well as their relationships with
students. I can only hint at the wealth of ideas and
stimulating discussion contained in this brief (296
pages), well-organized book.
In every semester, in my experience, an instruc-
tor is confronted with ethical dilemmas, that is,
situations requiring solutions that meet high stan-
dards. Here are some of the issues with which I
was confronted just this past semester:
• The failure of a student to notify me of his
absence from a scheduled exam in advance or
shortly afterward, although circumstances eas-
ily permitted him to do this.
• The reasonableness of various explanations
offered for absences from classes where good
attendance is rewarded and unexcused ab-
sences after a certain number are penalized.
• Summaries of assigned readings assembled
using entire paragraphs copied from the read-
ings.
• Papers literally assembled from chunks taken
from employer publications.
• Students’ failure to use new questions that
were distributed for end-of-chapter assign-
ments.
• End-of-semester requests from students for ex-
tra-credit work to improve their final grades.
• A request from a former student to increase his
final course grade so he could achieve a cumu-
lative GPA of 3.0. This would permit him to
apply to a service academy and become a mil-
itary officer, a very high-priority personal goal.
Issues such as these are the primary focus of The
Ethics of Teaching. Following a brief introduction
are 195 cases clustered into 22 chapters. The book’s
content is easily digested, and it can be read in
short bursts over a period of time. Once consulted
and read, The Ethics of Teaching can be kept and
used as a manual or reference and a tool in men-
toring others. The authors claim to have “prepared
a casebook to stimulate discussion and raise con-
sciousness about ethical issues that may lurk un-
noticed in the halls of academe.” I might add, they
address issues, similar to the ones I listed above,
that faculty are pretty much left to resolve on their
own, often with no guidance. The authors strive to
address issues having ethical components that are
not addressed in detail in professional ethics
codes or institutional policies, although instructors
are strongly encouraged to learn the latter, and
issues likely to be addressed by university policy
are identified throughout the book. Not addressed
in this book, perhaps for pragmatic reasons such
as book length, are egregious violations of ethical
or moral standards by faculty (e.g., sexual harass-
128 Academy of Management Learning & Education
ment of students and staff, forging scientific data,
gross incompetence); issues only remotely related
to teaching (e.g., ethical issues related to hiring,
retention, and promotion; the conduct of research;
conflicts with administrators and policy); and
broad policy issues in education having an ethical
dimension (e.g., the growing use of graduate stu-
dents in undergraduate teaching and huge class
sizes).
The authors are advocates of learning environ-
ments that are “healthy, comfortable and active,”
and “[they] see higher education as a privilege
with attendant responsibilities on the part of both
faculty and student” (p. xviii). From the latter it is
clear that the authors are not tolerant of faculty or
student efforts that are minimal at best. Ethics
involves rules or principles that define right and
wrong conduct (Webster’s II, 1984; Hunsaker, 2005).
Appropriately, the authors in their introduction ex-
plicitly identify the general principles or stan-
dards—eight in all—that shape their take on the
classroom and nonclassroom situations or scenar-
ios described in the book, and the suggestions they
craft for handling each. These principles (abbrevi-
ated) are:
• Respect for the autonomy of others—acknowl-
edging the right of students, faculty, and staff
to choose their own ways in life as long as their
actions do not interfere with or harm others;
valuing the free expression of ideas and appro-
priate dissent; maintaining a comfortable en-
vironment conducive to learning.
• Instructors doing no harm to others, physically
or emotionally, from acts of commission and
omission—engaging in nonexploitative rela-
tionships with students and colleagues; elimi-
nating the injurious effects of bias in their
work; refusing to remain passive in response to
unethical behavior by students and col-
leagues.
• Work that benefits others—accepting responsi-
bility for student welfare and development; re-
maining competent; providing the services to
which students are entitled; recognizing the
instructor’s role as model and exemplar.
• Fairness and equity—treating others as we
wish to be treated in similar circumstances;
maintaining fair practices and objectivity in
evaluating students, peers, and staff.
• Fidelity and honesty—exhibiting loyalty, truth-
fulness, openness, integrity, and promise-
keeping in all relationships; labeling our opin-
ions as such; seeking the consent of relevant
others before disclosing information.
• Treating others with dignity—according dig-
nity to all; avoiding arrogance and superiority;
respecting diversity.
• Caring—exercising professional and institu-
tional duties with thoughtfulness and care; ex-
tending compassion and concern to the great-
March
est extent possible toward students, peers, and
staff.
• Doing one’s best—striving for excellence; tak-
ing pride in one’s work. (pp. xviii–xix)
The Ethics of Teaching is organized into six
parts. Part I is concerned with how an instructor’s
course policies and student deportment or behav-
ior in the classroom—and an instructor’s response
to this behavior—contribute to classroom ambi-
ance. The cases here include “Questions Unwel-
come Here,” “Conflicts Between Academic Assign-
ments and Other Campus Activities,” “Disruptive
Students,” and “Class Monopolist.” The focus of
the cases in Part II is on the classroom learning
experience of students, and the cases include
“Criticism of Colleagues in Class,” “Teaching to
Which Student Audience?” “Course Descriptions
Versus Actual Course Content,” and “Requiring
Students to Disclose in Class.”
The assessment of student performance is the
focus of Part III, which contains more cases (55)
than any other part of the book. The sections of Part
III address testing and evaluation methods, grad-
ing practices, the timeliness and extent of feed-
back to students, academic dishonesty, bias in the
treatment of students, and writing reference letters
for students. Part IV concerns faculty availability
to students and faculty–student interactions out-
side of the classroom. The cases in Part IV include
“Refusing to Return Student Messages,” “Rights of
Working Students,” and “Attending Student’s So-
cial Events.”
The focus of Part V, titled “Relationships in
Academia,” is on conflict of interest situations
involving faculty and students; situations in
which faculty are teaching those who they know
from off-campus settings; speaking with stu-
dents about university colleagues; situations in
which one may be perceived as exploiting stu-
dents; manipulative students and instructors;
and supervising and advising students. Among
the rich cases here are “Look Who Showed Up for
Class,” “Selling Goods to Students,” “Recom-
mending Colleagues to Students,” “Using One’s
Own Work as Required Reading,” “Helping an
Irresponsible Student,” “Too Many Chances?”
and “Playing to Student Evaluations.” In the
book’s final section, Part VI, the authors are con-
cerned with the additional responsibilities of
faculty to students, colleagues, and their institu-
tion. The focus here is on instructor competency
in the classroom, appropriately maintaining con-
fidentiality, an instructor’s expression of politi-
cal and religious views and public statements,
and the use of institutional resources.
Each case is followed by a brief discussion
2006 Book and Resource Reviews
(typically of about a half-page). Discussions an-
alyze an instructor’s actions, which usually have
violated, moderately or severely, one or more of
the ethical standards stated in the introduction.
Discussions always offer alternative ways of
handling a situation that are more compatible
with the principles, for which one is thankful. An
admirable feature of the book is that it tends not
to provide highly prescriptive solutions. In many
instances, the authors offer both their criticisms
and suggestions lightly, demonstrating respect
for the variety of goals, beliefs, and values found
among those who teach in higher education. Fol-
lowing each case discussion there are usually
excellent related questions for reflection that are
also very suitable, and likely intended, for group
discussion. Selfishly—in no way is this offered
as a criticism—I wished that the authors had
taken a crack at answering a number of these
very good questions.
In each case the protagonists are introduced us-
ing humorous names that mirror their subsequent
actions. Thus, Professor Mutem seldom provides
opportunities for students to ask questions or make
comments in class. Professor Timeclock does not
permit students to enter the classroom if even a
few seconds late. Emily Cruise explains to her
instructor that the annual family vacation trip to
the Bahamas starts the day of the second exam.
(Can you guess the issue involving Professor Soft-
touch?) The authors labor to explain and defend
this feature of the book though, to me, it represents
a real asset. While perhaps off-putting to some, I
found the device to be both entertaining and help-
ful. It injected humor in and kept light a book that
otherwise would have been dry and manual-like,
and actor names signaled the behavior to be de-
scribed.
Summing up, The Ethics of Teaching is a very
worthwhile book for faculty to read and to own.
One can easily envision faculty development
workshops organized around this book, and even a
semester- or year-long faculty development expe-
rience in which participants would meet weekly to
discuss these cases. The book’s authors indicate
that The Ethics of Teaching was designed to be
used for just these purposes.
REFERENCES
Hunsaker, P. L. 2005. Management: A skills approach, (2nd ed.).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Webster’s II: New Riverside Dictionary. 1984. Riverside Publish-
ing Company c/o Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, MA.
129
Academic Dishonesty: An Educator’s
Guide, by Bernard E. Whitley, Jr., and Pa-
tricia Keith-Spiegel. Mahwah, NJ: Law-
rence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. 169
pages, soft cover.
Reviewed by Barry R. Armandi, State University of New
York—Old Westbury.
Annette Nellen had her most personal en-
counter with plagiarism last year after doing
a Google search. The San Jose State Univer-
sity tax professor pulled up an award-win-
ning student paper from a New York Univer-
sity Web Site and—surprise!—she had
written it two years before for a law confer-
ence.
Her experience shows how the Internet has
heightened both challenges and opportuni-
ties for inhabitants of universities. For Nellen,
the Web provides a chance to share research
with students and colleagues around the
world. But for students who either don’t know
how to write an academic paper or want a
quick fix, it offers nearly limitless opportuni-
ties to steal other people’s work.
At Universities across the nation, officials are
looking for ways to reverse what seems like
an epidemic of unethical behavior (Bartin-
dale, 2004).
As professional educators we have all been ex-
posed to the problems of plagiarism, cheating, and
other forms of academic dishonesty by students at
one time or another. With the advent and explosion
of the Internet, the aforementioned example
should not surprise us. It is just a newer version of
an old familiar problem. Understanding the prob-
lem helps, but developing feasible solutions has
usually been left to the individual professor.
In Academic Dishonesty, Whitley and Keith-
Spiegel not only discuss what academic dishon-
esty is and the reasons students do it, they also
present both ways to handle it and to prevent fu-
ture incidents. Based on their own and others’ re-
search, they explain the growing problem and of-
fer practical solutions for faculty. They don’t stop
there, however, because they also indicate that the
major part of the solution lies with the administra-
tion of the college or university. In essence they
encourage not only support from administrators,
but the implementation of a strategy and system to
help ward off reoccurrences.