Mike Shaub
Texas A&M University

More than anything else I’ve ever done in my career
Teaching Accounting Ethics this way leads to different conversations, and to meaningful conversations, with both students and colleagues.
It’s easier to teach to a few, but it can also be taught to many.

Create freedom.
Encourage discussion.
Create connections.
Encourage accountability.

Purpose of the course: Ten (or Fewer)
Principles to Guide My Professional
Life
Freedom of the course: I choose my outside reading.
Commitment of the course: To be accountable to the other people in my
Ethics Accountability Group

STUDENT-CENTERED VS. KNOWLEDGE-CENTERED
Not as much pressure as Auditing regarding testability
Does this task/assignment/class have the potential to impact ethical sensitivity/reasoning/ behavior?

Early buy-in from leaders—I need 40-50 a semester.
 I recruit them by email while on their internships.
 I offer very little payback other than the leadership opportunity.
I do my best to know as many names as possible in the classroom.
I invite in interesting outside speakers who validate the importance of the topics we are discussing.
I develop a common language that we can use in week one.
Most students are only taking one other class during the sixweek period, so I invest heavily in engaging individuals in the class and drawing them out in the first two weeks.

Core amount of classes aimed at state requirements
 Independence
 Integrity
 Objectivity
 Moral reasoning
Balance and variety in conduct of class
Speakers targeted at critical and relevant issues
 First-hand fraud accounts: Weston Smith (HealthSouth),
Glyn Smith (WorldCom), Helen Sharkey (Dynegy)
 Actively engaged in fraud research or social media leaders on these issues: Kelly Richmond Pope, Francine
McKenna

24 days of class (12@1:55, 12@1:15)
1 Intro day
8 Shaub presentations, including closing
5 Student presentations
2-3 Videos
5-7 Guest speakers (Spring 2013)

I generally know where we’re going on a given day in Auditing.
This is not necessarily true in Ethics.
So I try to enjoy the ride.
“This is where I think we’re going, but we may discover something better.”
Example: Open classroom discussion arising from
Weekly Ethics Reading Summaries on Mondays

Ethics Accountability Group leaders—everyday accountability
Outside reading—Completely their choice, Weekly Ethics
Reading Summaries (WERSs), report time spent reading
Ethics Accountability Groups
 Together daily
 Discussions weekly
 Course-ending presentation (goal: memorable)
Peer evaluation and some peer grading on WERSs
Ethics speaker evaluations

With you and with each other
Ethics coffees weekly
Blog comments— www.bottomlineethics.com
Twitter and Facebook
Spring 2015—Google Docs to build toward Ten Principles

Most of ethics is noncontroversial.
 Choosing between legitimate choices that affect yourself and others
 Or, just resisting temptation
So I try not to make the course about a long string of unsolvable ethical problems.

Develop Ten (or Fewer) Principles to Guide My
Professional Life
Taking ownership of ethics for your own life
Driven by your goals, motivations, purpose, and belief system
Tested against what others have to say in class discussions, against speakers’ views, against your weekly readings, against your Ethics Accountability
Group members

Intellectually stimulating
Importance of class discussions and dissent
Learning to listen to others’ viewpoints
Speakers targeted important issues
Encouraged to develop moral principles

“This course is the most interactive class that I have ever had at [the university].
The curriculum forced students to reflect, read and listen in ways I have never had the opportunity to before.”
A student in my Spring 2015 class of 197

Bring completed Weekly Ethics Reading Summary (WERS) and Google Doc
Meet in Ethics Accountability Groups and annotate WERSs
(30-40 minutes), then discuss in the group
One comment per group on a notecard that is then typed on the screen up front
Whole class discussion, rapid fire, on as many as we can get to
I grade annotated WERSs, monitor Google docs.
EAG leaders grade one other group’s WERSs to turn in
Tuesday. Peer grade is ¼ of total grade.

Weekly Ethics Reading Summaries 25%
Ten Principles to Guide My Professional Life 17%
EAG Presentation
Mid-term Exam
15%
20%
Ethics Speaker Evaluation Memos
HealthSouth Case Group Solution
Professionalism/Accountability
8%
5%
10%

You can certainly teach the course using this approach MUCH MORE
EASILY with fewer students. I doubt that anyone is teaching Accounting
Ethics to more students than I did this spring.
The course is modular, so you can adopt particular topics and bring them into another course.
I have found that most of the methods that I use in the class stimulate discussion, or I discard them.
 For example, more students hate using social media for the course than I suspected, though some love it.
So you can pick one of the methods (WERS, ESEM, etc.) to apply in another course.
But the course would be different without the accountability groups.