Who is to Blame for Lax Academic Standards? It is no surprise to college professors that academic cheating is on the rise even though virtually every university has a policy on academic integrity. The reasons are many as discussed below but lax standards by professors and indifference towards cheating can... Read more →

Expectations and Realities I have blogged before about how to teach ethics to college students. There is no one best way to do so and a variety of methods have been tried. But first, we need to consider what the goals should be of teaching ethics to college students. Here... Read more →

Ethics IS a Critical Thinking Skill I recently read an article in an online publication Cardinal Points, which is a weekly publication of Plattsburg State University. I was drawn to the piece because of its title: Are Grades Ethical? This is an important issue and one that deserves our attention,... Read more →

Do the Ends Justify the Means? I recently read some of the results of a survey taken by Intelligent.com that addresses why parents cheat to get their kids accepted into college. The purpose of this blog is to share those results and give my own opinion. Intelligent.com is an online... Read more →

The Good and the Bad I recently read a study by the Vanderbilt Center for Teaching that provides a useful perspective on the usefulness of teacher evaluations. Students have been evaluating teaching performance for many years so the time is right to reflect on the findings. As a professor emeritus... Read more →

Engaging Students With Online Instruction My “Ethics Sage” blog this past Tuesday addressed some of the questions for instructors in preparing to create e-Learning experiences using Zoom. Here are those questions. What techniques are available for E-Learning? What are the limitations of E-Learning? How can we develop and nurture an... Read more →

Do the Ends Justify the Means? It’s no surprise to me that many college students are finding ways to cheat during online testing in our COVID-19 environment. According to a survey by Wiley, 93 percent of instructors think students are more likely to cheat online than in person. One-third said... Read more →

A Note About Moral Responsibility I have been wondering whether professors like myself, who are known as ethicists, behave any differently than non-ethicists. After all, if we do not then perhaps we’re not the experts in ethics that we pretend to be. If this is true, what might be the... Read more →

A Cost-Benefit Analysis I recently read an article in the Harvard Business Review about a study of the relationship between the university rank and performance of graduates. The students came from 294 universities that ranked from Top 10 to about top 20,000 in the Webometrics global university rankings that rank... Read more →

Weighing the Costs and Benefits We all know the risks to the health and safety of college football players if the season goes on in the midst of the coronavirus. But it’s more than just their physical health at stake. For some, cancelling the season, as has been done in... Read more →