Assignment task: Excerpt from The Moral Landscape of Student Affairs Work:
Some survey participants reported that other ethical dilemmas arise when they are called upon to make exceptions to institutional policies for students. When a parent, for example, threatens to sue a college or university for denying admission to their student, subtle pressure may be exerted on staff to admit the student during the appeal process. In these situations, student service officials may confront an ethical conflict when more qualified students have been denied through the same appeal process. A similar type of pressure may occur when a well-connected student, such as the relative of an institutional Trustee, becomes involved in a disciplinary situation, and the judicial affairs department receives a phone call from the President's office asking to be kept informed of the case. Student affairs staff may then face a moral dilemma about how to proceed including how to discipline appropriately the student, and to whom to report their findings and actions.
Scenario: You are hired to work in the Office of Student Conduct as an Assistant Director at Large State University and as a new professional, you are just trying to get established. You are working on typical cases like alcohol incidents, drug incident and housing violations. You receive a report for a student, Riley Andrews, for two alcohol violations in the same weekend, one involving a fight and broken fire extinguisher glass. You receive a call from the president's office the day after you send the student a letter for the meeting. The president asks what is going to happen to the student and then says, we need to make this go away. And, that you should not discuss this with anyone else including your supervisor. You learn later that Riley is the son of a large financial donor to the institution.
Q1. After you have had a chance to consider all this information, how do you handle this situation?
Q2. What risks do you take by taking action (meaning contacting your supervisor) AND by not taking action?
Q3. What types of punishment are typically handed down in situations like this? What type of punishment should be handed down?
Q4. In looking at Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development, where does this type of moral/ethical decision fit in the stages?
Q5. What steps are you going to take as a professional to make sure that you do not find yourself in this situation?
Q6. If we consider Gilligan's Theory of Feminine Morality, how might a female professional make decisions about this dilemma differently from a male professional?