Implementing Ethics Across
the Curriculum at UPRM:
A Lens Metaphor
by
José A. Cruz, William J. Frey, & Halley D. Sanchez
University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez Campus
Association for Practical and Professional Ethics
Twelfth Annual Meeting
February 27 – March 2, 2003
Charlotte, North Carolina
© 2003 by Cruz, Frey & Sanchez
Agenda
► Introduction
► Different
approaches to ethics in the curriculum
► Our experience at UPRM
► The 15-85 Lens Model
► Assessment
► Partnerships
► Community
Ethical decision-making skills are
increasingly important
► High
Profile scandals in U.S.
 Worldcom, Arthur Andersen, Enron, Kmart
► Corruption
scandals in Puerto Rico
► Time Magazine People of the Year:
 Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley, and Sherron
Watkins (People taking ethical stands have
become media heroes)
► Accreditation
Requirements (e.g. ABET,
AACSB, Middle States)
UPRM graduates need technical
and ethical decision-making skills
► Technical
mastery
► Sense of professional responsibility
► Commitment to Public Service
► Ability to evaluate ethically projects,
products and services
Universities can provide many of
these needed skills
► Forty
years of research shows that ethics
can be taught at university level
► Improvements in moral development can
and have been documented
► Ethics can be integrated into the technical
curriculum effectively and efficiently.
There are three general
strategies to teaching ethics
► As
a required course
► Ethics Across the Curriculum (EAC)
► A Hybrid Approach
 Different combinations of free standing courses
and EAC integration projects
A required course approach has
its advantages and its challenges
► Advantages
 All students exposed to ethics in required course
 Simple and direct approach
 Economies of scale (e.g. large classes)
► Challenges
 Requires Committed, Qualified Personnel
 The challenge of integrating ethics into the
Business, Science, and Engineering (BSE)
curriculum
An EAC approach also has its
advantages and its challenges
►Advantages
 Ethics integrated throughout the BSE curriculum
 Best ethics mentor for BSE students is the BSE
professor engaged in EAC
►Challenges
 Empowering BSE faculty—providing skills,
tools, and motivation
 Collaboration between ethics and BSE faculty
 Coordinating individual BSE faculty efforts
We have taken a hybrid
approach at UPRM
► Free
standing ethics courses
 Students take free standing courses as electives
 Feeds EAC program (provides knowledge and
innovation)
► EAC
program
 Integrates ethics modules and exercises into
mainstream BSE courses
 Effectively and efficiently intervenes at all levels
of undergraduate study (freshman - senior)
We have refined our free
standing courses
► Curriculum
Development Grant (UPR-CA)
 Revise Existing Courses:
►Engineering
Ethics, Bioethics, and Clinical Ethics
►Engineering Ethics: Interactive approach using cases;
integrating service learning
► Development
of New Courses:
 Environmental Ethics
 Computer Ethics
 Global Issues
► Plan
for Certificate Program in PPE
From the beginning we have
taken an interdisciplinary route
► Faculty
Empowerment
► Course
Content Co-integration
 Retreats and workshops to provide BSE faculty with
experience in integrating ethics into their classes
 We have integrated ethical concepts into the BSE
curriculum (mainstream BSE courses)
 We have integrated BSE concepts into the ethics
curriculum (freestanding courses in practical and
professional ethics)
We have achieved much of this
through a series of grants.
► NSF
SBR-9810253
 Interdisciplinary Training in Ethics for Business, Science,
and Engineering Faculty in Puerto Rican Context
► This
grant sponsored two retreats
 Sessions on ethical problems and methods
 Sessions on ethical theory and ethical issues
 Case writing sessions
► Retreat
Results
 50 BSE ethics cases and 11 BSE Ethics Integration
Projects
We introduced our university and
Puerto Rico to EAC
► Ethics
Across Curriculum Grant (UPR-CA)
 EAC Workshop for Academic Deans of UPR System
(11 units)
► EAC




Workshop Series
EAC for UPR-Utuado Natural Science Program
Integrating EAC into UPRM COLA General Studies
Courses
EAC Workshop for UPRM ABET Steering
Committee
3 EAC Workshops for UPRM Eng. Faculty:
►Industrial,
General, and Electrical Engineering
 EAC Workshop at ASEE 2002 (Montreal, Canada)
Our EAC workshop format has been
refined over the course of two years
► EAC
Workshop Highlights
 Discussion of the ethics requirements in ABET
EC 2000
 Features of the EAC strategy that form the
background of our approach to ABET
 Two interactive demonstrations of ethics
integration modules for engineering classes
 Hands-on activities for faculty to develop their
own ethics cases and exercises
These workshops have produced
significant outcomes
► EAC




Workshop Outcomes
Forty New Engineering Ethics Cases
Seven Ethics Modules for Engineering Classes
Instructor’s Manual for Engineering Faculty
Helped Engineering respond to ABET EC 2000
►Electrical
and Civil engineering incorporated tools
from instructor manual into their ABET selfevaluation reports
 Commitments for ethics integration projects
from participants of Montreal ASEE workshop
We want to build on our track record
and institutionalize EAC at UPRM
► We
want to focus on the EAC activities that
have been the most effective in the UPRM
context
► We want to adopt a robust strategy that
incorporates continuous improvement
► The strategy should be exportable to other
UPR campuses and other universities
Our strategy consists of
four main components
► We
seek to empower our students ethically
by means of …
 An Empowered BSE Faculty
►A
core group committed to and skilled in EAC
 An EAC Toolkit
►A
repository of cases, ethics integration exercises,
ethics modules for BSE courses, instructors manuals,
online support
 An Ethics Center
►Center
for Ethics in the Professions
 Assessment Strategies to generate feedback
to ensure continuous improvement
We conceptualize this strategy
through a dual lens metaphor
Core
Faculty
Faculty
Students
Through faculty development efforts
some of the BSE faculty commit to
and focus on EAC (1st lens)
Committed Core
Faculty
Faculty
Maintaining a committed core of BSE
faculty is key to the EAC effort
► Yearly
retreats recruit, empower, and
maintain BSE faculty
► Occasional workshops support retreat
efforts
► Faculty participation as Ethics Bowl judges
helps to generate enthusiasm
► Ethics Center offers online and offline
support for BSE faculty
Yearly retreats play a key role in
recruiting and empowering faculty
► Day
1: Recruit new BSE faculty to EAC (rookies)
 Introduce the ethics rookies to EAC
 Incorporate features from our successful ABET EAC
workshops
 Model successful integration projects
 Emphasize faculty participation through hands-on activities
► Day
2: Bring in experienced BSE faculty (ethics
veterans) to mentor ethics rookies
 Ethics veterans demonstrate their integration projects
 Ethics veterans work with rookies on teams to develop new
projects
► Day
3: Implement Integration Projects
 Faculty present their new integration projects
 Faculty commit to ethics integration projects and reports
The yearly retreats provide continuity
and are based on specific objectives
► They
renew veterans’ enthusiasm and commitment
► They help keep everyone up to date
► They help recruit rookies to EAC
► They allow veterans to mentor rookies
► Participants generate new ethics integration exercises
► Participants write new cases that respond to changing
issues
► Participants document their BSE ethics integration
projects through follow-up reports
The EAC efforts of the committed
core faculty are magnified to reach
100% of the students (2nd lens)
Committed Core
Faculty
Students
The ethics toolkit magnifies the efforts
of the BSE faculty core
► Ethics
integration projects are built from
materials in ethics toolkit





ethics cases
ethics integration exercises
ethics modules
online resources
instructors manuals
The efforts are also magnified through
coordination and special activities
► BSE
faculty integrate ethics projects into
strategically selected, gateway courses
► Ethics Center generates grants, provides
support, and leads assessment efforts
► Ethics Center sets up and maintains
supportive materials online
► Ethics Bowl
► Other activities
Both lenses function together
to form our dual lens metaphor
► Faculty
development efforts establish a committed
core. The core’s efforts are magnified through the
toolkit to reach and impact a majority of students.
Core
Faculty
Faculty
Students
The goal is to reach 100% of our
students via the committed faculty.
► Through
past efforts we have recruited about 10% of
our BSE faculty to EAC
► We believe we can increase this to 15% through
faculty empowerment retreats (first lens)
► Goal / Hypothesis: By magnifying the efforts of
15% of our BSE faculty, we can reach 100% of our
students and have a measurable and positive impact
on 85%
 Ethics Toolkit, Ethics Center, Special Activities, Strategic
Interventions in the BSE curriculum together provide the
magnification (second lens)
► We
refer to this as the 15-85 Lens Model
Keeping the effort voluntary
is important
► Forcing
for us
BSE faculty to teach ethics hasn’t worked
 Schools where this is successful have a specific mission
and have a small closely related faculty
► Compelling
philosophy faculty to teach applied
ethics courses hasn’t worked for us either
 BSE Ethics should be a central and fundamental
commitment for those who teach it
► Therefore,
we seek voluntary participation by a
committed faculty core
Keeping the ethics toolkit up to date
is important too
► The
toolkit should cover a broad spectrum of BSE
ethical issues
► The cases of the toolkit repository should be
continuously renewed
► The toolkit should provide…
 Cases and exercises that can be readily situated into
BSE courses
 Cases that combine ethical and technical content
 Exercises that allow for teaching BSE course content
while teaching ethics
Another goal is to develop a
comprehensive assessment process
► Refining
assessment measures
 Develop more sensitive basic knowledge exams
 Fine tune activities and exercises to gain insight
into students’ decision-making skills
 Construct instruments to track students
throughout their undergraduate career (yearly)
 Document improvement in moral knowledge
and skills
A feedback loop in the lens
metaphor represents assessment
Core
Faculty
Faculty
Students
The feedback from assessment
enables us to “adjust the lenses”
► For





example…
Refine workshops
Up-date the toolkit
Fine-tune activities
Adjust goals
Validate the impact of our efforts on our students
► By
adjusting the lenses according to results
uncovered by assessment, we will continually
improve the whole process
We are working on developing
partnerships to implement this strategy
► Build
upon and deepen the partnerships
between our Ethics Center and …
 Our university (UPR-RP, UPRM, etc.)
 Other universities (Puerto Rico, U.S., Caribbean,
and South America)
 Professional Organizations (APPE, ASEE, FIE)
 Private Industry
 Puerto Rican Government
 Grant Providing Institutions
We are open to partnerships with
other universities to share our model
► We
conceptualized the dual lens strategy to
be robust and exportable
► We are confident that others can adopt it
► Particularly universities with similar
characteristics to UPRM
 Significant technical and scientific components
 Limited resources
 Medium to large sized institutions
Universities can apply this model by
adjusting the lenses to their context
► It
would be interesting to compare the effective
lens strategies used by different institutions:
 Benchmark different faculty core percentages
 Benchmark different feasible targets for student impact
 Benchmark standards for charting student improvement
► We
propose meeting in the future to share our
experiences with this model
► This model could lead to a better understanding
and sharing of “best practices” for EAC
A secret ingredient … community
► For
those willing to try this approach, we want to
share with you what we think has been a critical,
success factor
► We have been fortunate at UPRM that a sense of
community has emerged among the different
constituents (e.g., BSE faculty, philosophy faculty,
and administration)
► By this we mean we have come to share a sense of
 motivation, passion, commitments, goals, etc.
This sense of community is based on
mutual respect
► BSE
faculty need to recognize the presence
and importance of ethics in their professions
► On the other hand, ethicists (philosophers)
need to listen and learn from their BSE
colleagues
► We believe that the ethics initiatives we
have carried out have helped to build this
mutual, reciprocal respect
Thank You !
Any questions,
comments or
suggestions?
► How




to reach us
w_frey@rumac.uprm.edu
jacruz@uprm.edu
h_sanchez@rumac.uprm.edu
Visit www.uprm.edu/ethics