I magine a year’s college tuition. Now take that number, and double it. Now imagine someone sticking it in an envelope and giving it to Senior Vice Chancellor Marsha Chandler as an administrative stipend and auto allowance, in addition to her $212,600 salary, while she was on sabbatical for the 2004-05 fiscal year. While this scenario isn’t one that is presented on the mandatory ethics briefing that all UC employees must complete by June, it is certainly something to consider when looking at a timeline of how the ethics briefing came about.
In 2005, the UC Board of Regents adopted a Statement of Ethical Values and Standards of Ethical Conduct, which, together, outline specific ethical principles and policies for employee actions. Just a year later, a series of questionable pay practices by high-ranked UC employees, including UC President Robert C. Dynes, were revealed in a state audit of the University of California’s compensation procedures. In response to media reports of undisclosed lucrative payments to UC executives, Dynes proposed a program that would require mandatory ethics training for all 170,000 UC employees.
While this proposal immediately followed accusations in the media, Michael Kalichman, Director of the Research Ethics Program at UCSD, claims the ethics briefing was being developed long before these questionable practices were discovered.
“”It’s true there were high-profile problems addressed to the president, but this briefing is based on issues before those problems arose,”” Kalichman said. “”The briefing wasn’t really developed as a solution to a particular problem; it is more the first step at the university to foster a culture of ethical conduct.””
Philosophy professor Samuel Rickless agrees that the overall intention of the briefing is important, no matter how it was initiated.
“”I think that it is perfectly appropriate for the UC system to remind its employees of what is expected of them as employees in the area of ethics, regardless of what brought about Dynes’ felt need to implement the survey,”” Rickless said in an e-mail .
The 30-minute ethics briefing consists of basic hypothetical scenarios, in which employees must choose the “”most ethical”” response from a list of multiple choice answers.
“”These scenarios aren’t relevant to everyone on campus, but our hope is that everyone can use these basic concepts demonstrated in the survey and relate them to what they do on a daily basis,”” Kalichman said.
According to some student employees, the intentions of the briefing can sometimes be lost in the redundancy of the material.
“”Most of it was stuff we already knew,”” said Muir College freshman Marinna Culter, an employee at the UCSD Bookstore. “”Like, ‘In this situation would it be the ethical thing to do this?’ But, I guess it’s beneficial because if you don’t know the policies, it helps you understand them.””
Thurgood Marshall College junior and Student Busines and Services employee AJ Lee agrees that the format of the briefing made the answers obvious.
“”I finished it in five minutes, and I didn’t really even have to read it,”” Lee said. “”Maybe if they made it so that if you get an answer wrong, you have to go back and re-read the policies, it would be more effective.””
While Kalichman acknowledges the briefing’s limitations, he believes it is important to expose staff and faculty to the existence of the university’s ethical policies.
“”The focus is on the Standards of Ethics and Values and the Standards of Ethical Conduct,”” Kalichman said. “”The purpose [of the briefing] isn’t to teach what our policy is, but to familiarize people with the existence of those documents. It’s a very narrow goal, but if you aren’t narrow in situations like these, you might bite off more than you can chew.””
