The University of California has made it clear from last
year’s compensation scandal that it needs a lesson in ethics.
It is taking this literally with a new required ethics course for
its employees, but the idea needs some fine-tuning.
The same 30-minute online course will be required of each of the
university’s 230,000 employees, from UCLA’s dining hall
workers to the all-powerful President Robert Dynes.
But those who run the university should be made to have a higher
awareness of moral standards than those who clean the halls. An
expanded version of the test should be created for top-level
administrators and regents to take.
Showing the UC’s commitment to accountability, the
multiple-choice questions are not monitored or scored.
Students all know from experience the sad fact: If it
isn’t graded, you don’t care. It seems like the UC
should want to know if the new chancellor fails his ethics
exam.
Promoting ethics within the university is a worthy goal, and
hopefully it will further inform employees and enable
whistle-blowing when things go awry. But the university needs to
take the online course seriously if it wants its employees to take
ethics seriously.