In Faculty Misconduct in Collegiate Teaching, higher education researchers John Braxton and Alan Bayer address issues of impropriety and misconduct in the teaching role at the postsecondary level. Braxton and Bayer define and examine norms of teaching behavior: what they are, how they come to exist, and how transgressions are detected and addressed. Do faculty members across various collegiate settings, for example, share views about appropriate and inappropriate teaching behaviors, as they share expectations regarding actions related to (...) research? And what mechanisms are utilized to correct inappropriate behavior on the part of college and university teachers? The authors' work is based on survey results obtained from faculty members at research universities, liberal arts colleges, and two-year community, junior, and technical colleges. Braxton and Bayer's focus is on undergraduate teaching in four disciplines: biology, history, mathematics, and psychology. In their analyses, the authors examine how individual, disciplinary, and institutional differences influence professorial behavior. In contrast to the more explicitly understood and enforced rules of conduct in research, the authors find that teaching norms are informally defined and observed. They argue that a formal code of ethics for undergraduate teaching would serve the dual purpose of improving undergraduate education and elevating the status of college teaching. A groundbreaking study of contemporary academe, Faculty Misconduct in Collegiate Teaching is required reading for all university and college instructors and administrators. (shrink)

These and other examples of faculty misconduct -- and how to avoid them -- are the subject of this book.

This article asserts that graduate study should include preparation for participation in the process of self-regulation to assure the responsible conduct of research in the scientific community. This article outlines the various ways in which doctoral study can incorporate such preparation. These suggested ways include the inculcation of general attitudes and values about professional self-regulation, various ways doctoral study can be configured so that future scientists are prepared to participate in the deterrence, detection and sanctioning of scientific wrongdoing. The stages (...) of doctoral study in the United States and their relevance to preparation for self-regulations are also discussed. Recommendations regarding an extended role for faculty advisors, graduate assistantships, coursework and departmental policies and activities are also advanced. (shrink)

From a national U.S. sample of senior academic biochemists, ninety-four indicated that they personally knew of an incident of scientific wrongdoing. Among these individuals, less formal actions against an offending individual were endorsed when either actions were believed to have the potential to publicly embarrass the offending individual, or the actions might adversely affect the professional career of the whistleblower. These relationships remain significant after controlling for professional status, career age, and current level of formal departmental administrative responsibility. Study limitations (...) and implications are discussed. (shrink)

Positive public perceptions of academic quality and professional ethics are critical to the long-term legitimacy of American colleges and universities. Faculty codes of conduct are one mechanism whereby the professoriate can define acceptable practice, exercise social control, and maintain public confidence in higher education, yet the drivers of their adoption are not well understood. Building upon previous research into such organizational behavior by institutional type, this study examined the prevalence and content of publicly posted faculty codes of conduct within an (...) organizational field of institutions that share a common religious identity but differ in their institutional types and employment structures. Faculty handbooks from American member institutions of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, an international association of faith-based institutions, were gathered and analyzed. Although only 27% of CCCU member institutions in the U.S. publicly posted faculty codes of conduct, the average number of tenets present in each code was higher than suggested by previous research. Study findings also revealed that membership category, institutional type, and employment structures influence the content of faculty codes of conduct, indicating that isomorphic pressures operate within this particular organizational field. The piece concludes by commending publicly posted codes of conduct as an affirmation of the personal responsibility, fairness, and care exercised by ethical professionals in the academy. (shrink)

Generative AI programs can produce high-quality written and visual content that may be used for good or ill. We argue that a credit–blame asymmetry arises for assigning responsibility for these outputs and discuss urgent ethical and policy implications focused on large-scale language models.

Many previous studies have documented the detrimental effects of social loafing on others (_inter_personal impacts) at the between-person level. However, social loafing may carry underappreciated _intra_personal functional effects at the within-person level. Our research develops a novel theoretical framework to investigate _when_ and _how_ engaging in social loafing enhances one’s job performance. Drawing on the effort-recovery model and moral cleansing theory, we propose that social loafing may improve subsequent job performance by enhancing recovery and guilt. Specifically, we argue that among (...) employees who experience higher job demands or have higher moral identity, social loafing in the morning enhances their job performance in the afternoon by facilitating recovery or guilt in the morning. Two-wave daily data collected across ten consecutive workdays using the experience sampling method (ESM) supports this model. We discuss how this research identifies a functional basis for social loafing and provides implications for research and practice. (shrink)

Aristotle’s solution to Zeno’s arrow paradox differs markedly from the so called at-at solution championed by Russell, which has become the orthodox view in contemporary philosophy. The latter supposes that motion consists in simply being at different places at different times. It can boast parsimony because it eliminates velocity from the ontology. Aristotle, by contrast, solves the paradox by denying that the flight of the arrow is composed of instants; rather, on my reading, he holds that the flight is a (...) unity which is ontologically prior to the temporal parts that may be abstracted from it. I label this position temporal holism; and an entity that is ontological prior to its temporal parts lasting. Lasting, I argue, is the key to Aristotle’s solution to the arrow paradox, but it has received insufficient attention in the relevant literature. I therefore set out here to investigate lasting and highlight its major role in Aristotle’s metaphysics more broadly, and in his solution to other problems of change. I show, too, how lasting within a contemporary context underwrites a parsimonious and intuitive solution to the arrow paradox that retains instantaneous velocity, and hence solves a problem for those who think velocity is required within the ontology to underwrite certain causal roles. (shrink)

In a recent article, Erik Wielenberg has argued that positive skeptical theism fails to circumvent his new argument from apparent gratuitous evil. Wielenberg’s new argument focuses on apparently gratuitous suffering and abandonment, and he argues that negative skeptical theistic responses fail to respond to the challenge posed by these apparent gratuitous evils due to the parent–child analogy often invoked by theists. The greatest challenge to his view, he admits, is positive skeptical theism. To stave off this potential problem with his (...) argument, he maintains that positive skeptical theism entails divine deception, which creates insuperable problems for traditional theism. This essay shows that Wielenberg is mistaken. Although positive skeptical theism claims that we should expect the appearance of gratuitous evil given Christian theism, this does not entail divine deception. I maintain that God is not a deceiver on positive skeptical theism because God does not meet two requirements to be a deceiver: God does not intend to cause people to believe any false propositions and God does not provide evidence for someone to justifiably believe a false proposition. Consequently, Wielenberg’s new argument from evil fails and positive skeptical theism remains a viable response to the evidential argument from evil. (shrink)

Epistemic Indirect Realism is the position that justification for contingent propositions about the extra-mental world requires an inference based on a subjective, experiential mental state. One objection against EIR is that it runs contrary to common sense and practice; in essence, ordinary people do not form beliefs about things in the external world on the basis of experiential mental states. This objection implies EIR is contrary to ordinary experience, impractical, and leads to scepticism. In this paper, I will defend EIR (...) against this objection by distinguishing EIR based on conceptual awareness and non-conceptual awareness. In particular, I will argue that direct acquaintance provides sufficient awareness that can explain how ordinary folks are capable of forming justified beliefs about the external world in a way consistent with EIR. Overall, I present a framework for showing that EIR can satisfy ordinary epistemic practices without betraying human nature or over-intellectualizing the required epistemic standards for possessing a justified belief. (shrink)

In response to the recent resurgence of idealism among a cluster of Christian theologians and philosophers, this article raises a difficulty for Christians to be idealists. Unlike traditional accounts of Christianity that must explain why God permits or allows evil, idealists face a different and more difficult problem—namely why does God willfully and directly produce experiences of evil. Because the metaphysics of idealism requires God to produce experiences of evil directly and willfully, it is difficult to reconcile it with the (...) essential goodness of God. The existence of matter, therefore, may play an important role in maintaining God’s innocence while allowing creatures to exercise free will. (shrink)

The problem of peer disagreement represents a growing challenge to justified religious belief. After surveying the state of the dialectic of the problem, I explore three ways for religious believers to remain steadfast in light of religious disagreement. The first two ways focus on the believer’s basing his religious beliefs on a direct awareness of the truth or evidence of his beliefs. The third way considers the virtue of faith as a means for resisting peer disagreement.

We examine the merits of neoclassical environmental economics and discuss alternative approaches to it. We argue that the basic assumptions of the neoclassical approach, embodied in the indifference curve, make that model inappropriate for environmental analysis. We begin by assuming that the basic postulates of the neoclassical model hold and then argue that even this ideal state is incompatible with environmental sustainability. We discuss the role of the discount rate, the exclusive emphasis on marginal choices, and the assumption of perfect (...) information. (shrink)

We examine the merits of neoclassical environmental economics and discuss alternative approaches to it. We argue that the basic assumptions of the neoclassical approach, embodied in the indifference curve, make that model inappropriate for environmental analysis. We begin by assuming that the basic postulates of the neoclassical model hold and then argue that even this ideal state is incompatible with environmental sustainability. We discuss the role of the discount rate, the exclusive emphasis on marginal choices, and the assumption of perfect (...) information. (shrink)

This paper discusses how language games might facilitate a reimagining of learning conversations in art education, by comparing them with Socratic, Kantian and post-structuralist dialogical perspectives that inform group critique. It proposes that language games may facilitate the construction of more personal and layered modes of conversation, instead of prescribing processes intended to seek universal truths, authentic self-knowledge, or disruptive critical scepticism. It argues that they promote the recognition of all co-learners as people who come with their own valuable original (...) ideas and backgrounds. (shrink)

Ancient Philosophy Today, Volume 4, Issue 1, Page 1-3, April, 2022.

The essays in this book offer an in-depth exploration of value theory. Portions examine the theoretical foundations of values and valuation exploring the rational groundwork for judgments. Other aspects, appealing to value distinctions of inherent, intrinsic, and instrumental, bring to light matters of aesthetic, social political, ethical, and ontological issues.