Volume 14, Issue 3

The authors of this article discuss circumstances that have led in some ways to a decline in the commitment by colleges and universities to the well-being of undergraduates. They present reasons why an ethic of care is needed to promote student-college relationships that protect and nurture higher education’s youngest members.

In the late 19th century, faculty members on American college campuses turned their attention away from life outside the classroom, a responsibility they had assumed from the earliest days of the colonial college. The result was the establishment of a field known familiarly today as student affairs, which focuses on the work of administrators interested in the total student experience. An ethic of caring has characterized this work, reflected today both in its professional literature and in its daily practices.

Most college faculty care about the characters of their students, especially when it comes to questions of honesty. But can students today be trusted not to cheat when completing papers and exams, and not to do so for the right reasons? In section one of this article, the author reviews some of the leading research on cheating behavior, and in section two he does the same for cheating motivation. In section three, he then draws some implications from this research, both about what faculty can typically expect the characters of their students to be like when it comes to cheating, and what colleges might try to do to help foster character improvement in this area of their students’ lives.

As resources have become tighter, campus leaders must make tough decisions about priorities. Many people value the out-of-classroom experience, but there is a cost to staffing and providing these opportunities and resources. Some argue that technology will change education so completely that campuses as we know them today will become extinct. Student affairs has an important role to play in this time of turbulence and transition by providing information about the student experience in general and about the students on our individual campuses. Student affairs leaders need to speak continually about the importance of caring about students and their experiences, and they must find ways to partner with others who share their concerns

Honor codes have become increasingly popular at institutions of higher education as a means of reducing violations of academic integrity such as cheating and other academically dishonest acts. Previous research on honor code effectiveness has been limited to correlational research designs that preclude the examination of cause-and-effect relationships, which can be achieved through experimental designs. The purpose of the current experimentally designed study was to examine the effectiveness of honor code reporting of academic integrity violations in view of typical consequences and the institutional context. Results of the current study suggest that the reporting of academic integrity violations according to an honor code may not be effective over and above verbal reprimand and grade penalty, which may be considered as typically faculty-implemented consequences.

Colleges are under increasing pressure to develop future citizens who are interested in-and capable of-creating positive social change and improving their communities. Using data from the multiinstitutional SERU survey, this study suggests college students’ participation in leadership positions can promote their engagement in greater social change.

The most important knowledge and skills a college education should develop in young people are those underlying good character, such as integrity, responsibility, work ethic, intellectual curiosity, mental flexibility, and wisdom. When leaders fail, most frequently it is because of issues of character, not lack of knowledge or intellectual abilities. This article describes how to put character development into practice in a university setting (Oklahoma State University) through admissions processes and through instruction via a track in ethical leadership. The article also describes the theory behind the innovations and also ways these innovations can be put into practice.

Pluralism and engagement with diverse religious, secular, and spiritual worldviews can contribute significantly to college student growth and civic engagement. But these concepts can be difficult to measure in the framework of student learning. This article describes a process and product undertaken by Elon University, Interfaith Youth Core, and Wofford College (n.d.) to produce the Pluralism and Worldview Engagement Rubric, which helps faculty and staff define, measure, and analyze student learning that happens from engaging diverse religious and nonreligious perspectives. The rubric criteria and content are applicable at both the campus and programmatic (curricular and cocurricular) levels.

Although most colleges strive to nurture a culture of integrity, incidents of dishonest behavior are on the rise. This article examines the role student development plays in students’ perceptions of academic dishonesty and in their willingness to adhere to a code of conduct that may be in sharp contrast to traditional integrity policies.

Integrity has been a topic of interest for thousands of years. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the Code of Hammurabi, and many sacred writings cover ethics and promote honesty and integrity. In the modern world integrity, and specifically academic integrity, is a hot topic. With advances in students’ ability to copy and paste from Internet resources to advances in plagiarism detection software, new areas of cheating in college are emerging. Academic integrity among U.S. students, according to McCaber, Butterfield, and Treviño, is part of the larger discussion about integrity because dishonesty in college is related to dishonesty in their lives after college. This book covers two decades of quantitative research on student cheating in college, analyzes the results from several perspectives, and includes an exploration of data from research studies in high schools. The chapters cover prevalence, types, and methods of cheating; individual student characteristics and cheating; institutional factors and cheating; honor codes and cheating; the role of faculty in cheating; and end with a look at cheating in business and professional schools. The final chapter explores practical advice for faculty and administrators.

As our organizational life becomes more complex and busy, the likelihood of fragmentation and isolation among campus members increases. Conditions such as these call for greater attention to nurturing a sense of community. However, it is not always clear where responsibility for leading the development of campus community resides.