Rutland Issues and Perspectives

>> Monday, December 19, 2011

As some of you may know, Clemson University President James Barker was recently appointed chair of “one of four working groups [charged by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)] with recommending changes to improve the culture and operation of Division Iintercollegiate athletics”. What this working group, “Collegiate Model: Rules,” will be doing is very important. It is also the prompt for a Creative Inquiry course, Phil 492-001 Revising rules and regulations in the interest of integrity, that I will be teaching this spring with some help from President Barker. (In the interest of full disclosure I should note that the course is the upshot of President Barker’s interest in making the most of this “teachable moment” for Clemson students). If I may, I’d like to try to give you a sense of what we’ll be doing and its relevance beyond the realm of intercollegiate athletics.

Ethics and Leadership: An Executive’s Perspective; Stephan C. Barton '72

Steve with his father, J.T. Barton, Jr.;
taken in 1999

With the recent posting of the 2011-2012 J. T. Barton, Jr. Ethics Essay Competition rules and questions, we took the opportunity to interview its endower, member of the RIE advisory board and Cornerstone Member of the Rutland Ethics Alliance, Stephan Barton ’72.

Getting Students Excited about Ethics

Dr. Kelly Smith

By now, everyone reading this will have heard that Clemson’s ethics bowl team won the Mid-Atlantic regional competition for the third straight year last month! J I was the coach of the team in this most recent competition and I can honestly say it was both great fun and a real honor to spend time with such an amazing group of students. Everyone, from the five presenters to the larger squad of assistants to the associated faculty and staff, worked very, very hard to make this happen. What I want to do in this piece is try to give the reader a better sense of just how the team prepares and what a competition is like.

The Institute Introduces a New Fellow

Dr. Stuart Sprague

Stuart R. Sprague, PhD has been named a Special Projects Fellow in recognition of his contributions to a developing collaborative opportunity. His experience teaching family practice residents and dealing with ethical issues in clinical practices provides an added dimension in the arena of healthcare.

Youth Diplomacy Program Discovering and Developing Ethical Behavior in our Community, One Youth Diplomat at a Time

As stated on the Rutland Ethics Alliance website, “The concept of Ethics is as complex and diverse as the world's individuals and cultures.” The Alliance goes on further to acknowledge that “Perceptions about what is and is not ‘ethical’ behavior vary as cultural boundaries are crossed. True commitment to ethics involves an understanding the impacts that actions have on others and our surroundings.” http://www.clemson.edu/ethics/rea/home.html

What We See Depends on Where We Stand

The following article is reprinted from the October 2011 Staff Senate Newsletter.

The message is such a good one; we wanted to share the thinking as a great way to begin the New Year. Wishing you the very best that 2012 will bring!

Staff Ombudsman
Tom Ward

Two people standing together usually see the same things, right? Maybe. Maybe not. After sitting on our back porch nearly every night for years with my son he recently exclaimed that he saw a light out in the woods. I’d never seen any light where he described. He said, “it’s right there daddy, just beyond that tree.” After moving only a foot to the left, I finally saw the light he was referring to. How had I not seen that light after sitting on that deck gazing out into the wood on so many evenings?My position allowed a tree to block my view. With a small change in my position, my view changed and I saw something that I had not seen before.

NetworkBash – Three Meaningful Events – One Great Idea

This was the third year for NetworkBash, an idea that germinated in the minds of several faculty teaching Business and Technical Writing. The Rutland Institute for Ethics was proud to be part of the planning and a sponsor this year.

From the website: “NetworkBash is an event driven concept designed to bring college students and industry professionals under one roof to engage, connect, and build relationships for career opportunities. The foundation of NetworkBash is based on using Social Media technologies as a connection point, building conversations as the catalyst of relationship building.”We’d previously written about the first two events, Ignite and Excite and wanted to be sure to include a piece about event number 3, Engage, that occurred in November. It consisted of “rocket pitches” (thanks to the entrepreneurial mindset of Dave Wyman of the Spiro Institute) in three categories. The winners in each category, as judged by a panel of experts (aka area executives and entrepreneurs) were:

Ethics Challenges and Responses

The Mercury Moment

“This is not an issue of jobs versus the environment. It's an issue of the American people's public health versus a narrow special interest.”

By Michael R. Bloomberg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-bloomberg/epa-mercury-coal-emissions_b_1148099.html

Is Susan G. Komen Denying the BPA‐Breast Cancer Link?

Critics claim the leading Breast cancer research group is in the pocket of its BPA‐happy sponsors.

By Amy Silverstein

Mon Oct. 3, 2011 2:30 AM PDT

http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/09/breast-cancer-komen-bpa

A Drug That Wakes The Near Dead

By JENEEN INTERLANDI Published: December 1, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/can-ambien-wake-minimally-conscious.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

Opinion: Ghost Writing is Fraudulent

A legal remedy is needed to curb unethical “guest authorship” in medical journals.

By Simon Stern and Trudo Lemmens | November 2, 2011

http://the-scientist.com/2011/11/02/opinion-ghost-writing-is-fraudulent/

Rome Hartman: Television News in the Digital Age
Ethix, an e-publication of the Center for Integrity in Business at Seattle Pacific University has a very interesting interview by Al Erisman in its November 21, 2011 edition:

http://ethix.org