Hi all!
For those of you who made it, I hope you enjoyed today’s talk.
Dr. Reed and Mr. Betcher led a very interactive discussion about ethics of campus-community partnerships, using a hypothetical case study.
This was definitely one of the talks in which the relevant ethical issues were quite transparent. So I’ll leave it up to you to take up any of those threads.
If you want a suggestion on what to discuss, though, I was particularly interested in the question of what moral obligations (if at all) a campus has to its neighboring communities. On the one hand, one might think that a college is primarily an institution to educate and to research — and thus that there is little room for obligations to community members. On the other hand, there seem to be several arguments to suggest that colleges do have such obligations, directly or indirectly. Perhaps it’s a part of the university’s mission to benefit society at large. Or perhaps a university, in order to attract the best students, needs to benefit society because students want to be a part of a college that does that.
Another interesting issue is that of a power imbalance in contracts. Suppose that two parties are trying to reach an agreement, but that one of the parties does not have the capability of fully understanding the terms of the agreement. Does the more capable party have an obligation to the less capable party to explain the terms of the agreement? (One interesting way to think about this issue is to draw a parallel to informed consent. Can the less capable party really enter into an agreement if it is not informed about its content?)
Looking forward to reading your opinions!
I personally do not believe that a university has an obligation to its neighboring communities. I agree with the view expressed during class that the partnerships that a university might enter into are economic partnerships and it is up to each side to negotiate what they expect from any projects that are undertaken. While I feel this way, I do think that ethics do come in during negotiations and the writing of a contract. Both parties need to be absolutely clear of what they are expecting and what the other party is expecting. The university needs to make sure that their intentions are clear to the other party, and then that party can choose to either accept the terms or to re-negotiate. If a university chooses to take on the responsibility of bettering their community by sending students out as volunteers or taking other measures, then that is wonderful, but it is not a moral obligation for the university. The university’s obligation is to its students, to create a good learning environment, hire appropriate faculty members, etc.
Regarding the topic of research, I think that while researchers in the community should be open about what they are researching, what they expect to get out of the research, and what action (if any) they will be taking after evaluating the results of that research, it is again, not an obligation for them to actually do something about a problem they might be looking at. I think that the researcher’s responsibility is to gather accurate data, analyze that data, and make the results of their investigation known. Whether or not somebody uses those results to make an actual difference is not the responsibility of the researcher unless that research was a step in a larger process with a specific end goal of improving the community in some way. The community does not have to participate and provide information to researchers that do not clearly state that they are conducting research with a goal of real improvement in mind. That way, they do not end up disappointed when nothing comes of that research.
Julie Reed and Jeffrey Betcher were great sports at kindly encouraging us to evaluate the ethical implications that certain kinds of power imbalances can have. They seem to have caught most of us off guard with their proposed moral dilemma, however. I suspect that few of us gave much thought to the possibly insidious effects that asymmetric campus-community partnerships can have on communities, or more appropriately—members of a given community.
There were two separate kinds of obligations mentioned in the discussion. The first is economic, legal, and practical. A university clearly has the obligation to abide by the terms of any contract that it enters into. In this sense the university only has obligations to its students, its faculty, its investors, and the signatories of its contracts. Some people said that it might be misguided to view these kinds of partnerships as being “just” or “unjust.” It is not clear that third parties have the prerogative to try to influence the free chosen decisions of first and second parties.
It is difficult to discuss individuals’ duties to amorphous groups such as “communities” or “society”. It is even more difficult to attempt to assign one whole group duties to another whole group. Presumably, we only have duties to other individual human beings. What do we even mean when we say “a university?” Just who in the university has duties to the community? Is it the students? Teaching faculty? The administration? The lawyers that represent the university’s interests? There exists a continuum of responsibility that is hard to pin down.
Morally, a case can be made that universities should be more careful with what they do with their substantial power. The case study was based on actual events. Some of the actions taken clearly divided the community and drove out members of it. While it is an interesting discussion, I am not sure it is anything more than academic. Surely creating laws against these kinds of changes would be difficult and almost unenforceable.
This may be the moralistic fallacy, but I would like to think that of all institutions a learning center would be able to help the members of a community.
This last lecture discussed the ethics surrounding the partnerships between universities and communities. The lecture raised some important, hard questions about how beneficial this partnership is. Before coming into this lecture I thought that a partnership between a community and university only displayed positives. That, why wouldn’t a community team up with a university. Universities are centers for education and empowerment. But this was just my own naiveness. I didn’t understand the less glamourous side of the partnership.
There is usually a social power imbalance in such a partnership. Where the imbalance is in favor of the university. This then raises the question, does the powerful side of the relationship have the obligation to empower its partner. How much should the university care about the community and vice versa?
These questions are a lot harder to answer than I thought. The part of the lecture that struck me the most was the role of the students in this partnership. The students make up a significant portion of the universities population. Should the students take more of a responsibility into the partnership between the university and the surrounding community. I just think about the Stanford bubble. Students here never need to leave campus if they don’t want to. Students tend to get caught up in the pull of Stanford and their own experience here. I am among these students. Do the students have an obligation to give back to the community that is housing them, that gives to their university.
I personally do think that the university and the student population has an obligation to give back to the community. The university is a center of education. It’s main purpose is to teach and educate.
I believe it’s important to distinguish between a private and public university’s responsibility to the community in which it is based. On the one hand, I don’t believe a private university has so much an obligation as it does an opportunity to serve the community. If one argues that there is an obligation, on what basis does he make his argument? The example was brought up that some Stanford researchers may benefit from field work in the community of Palo Alto, and thus hold some sort of responsibility (or even debt) to the community members. But this notion ignores the fact that whatever benefit these researchers receive from the community is through an entirely voluntary contract. The community members could simply refuse to participate in such research, and no one would have to talk about a responsibility between Stanford researchers and Palo Alto community members. If the community members and university researchers want to interact, they should clarify what expectations they have of each other by enteringo into contracts which will resolve problems more quickly and prevent them before they arise. Otherwise, the only responsibility that exists between private parties, without a contract, is to leave each other alone. On the other hand, I believe that public universities have more of an obligation to involve itself in the community through various forms of service. I am not entirely knowledgeable on this subject but mere facts such as the public funding of public universities should mean that those universities hold more obligations to the public community. And of course, everyone has the right to benefit from their tax dollars. Perhaps another point to consider is: what kind of relationship should universities have with communities at all? Whether private or public, I believe a university can and should do good in the community in which it is based. When push comes to shove however, the universities main responsibility should always be to its students.
The question I’d like to investigate is whether it is at all ethical to liaise with a larger power which is there mostly for its own benefits when one is part of the lesser power. At first glance it doesn’t appear ethical because the act of acknowledging the larger power’s existence and collaborating with the larger power support their often times unethical means to get into contact with the lesser power (e.g. colonization). Collaboration may not be the closest description to the partnership neither, as the more powerful can behave like a dictator at its wish. Often times, the lesser power lives at the mercy of the more powerful and can only hope that the more powerful behaves ethically. But if the more powerful arrived at this stage through unethical means, how could the less powerful ensure that it will not behave unethically out of self-interest in the future? This makes the partnership extremely risky for the lesser power. At the same time, I do also see that if both parties behaves ethically, a lot can flourish from a partnership between two unbalanced powers. Similar to a case in which people found themselves a intrinsically flawed/imperfect system and have to come up with effective ways to cope with the imperfections which can benefit most people. If one were to treat the more powerful’s existence as a given, the best thing one can do is to make the most out of the situation – and partnership, when done ethically, provides synergies that either party alone won’t achieve. The question still remains as to whether risking to live with the necessary evil is ethical or rather that getting rid of the evil is the way to go. Does the end justify the mean?
In terms of a university’s MORAL obligation to the community, I think it doesn’t matter whether the university is public or private. However, a university’s ECONOMIC obligation to a community is more dependent on the type of institution. Public universities are funded by state tax dollars and therefore have an economic obligation to the community whereas private institutions don’t. Moral obligation is inherent in a university’s collective belief, largely based on its funding principles, overall goal, and beliefs of the faculty, staff, and students. Although it’s morally righteous for a university to consider the community’s best interest in decision-making, the extent of such obligation should not interfere with the overall goal of the university. For instance, most universities are aimed to educate and discover through research. Although the eventual goal of research is to effect change, possibly in the community, it is not the obligation of university to perform such change. This is a matter of job distribution – the job of teachers is to teach, researchers is to provide data, and policy makers to use such research data to make policies that may affect the community. Ethically, it is ideal that everyone contributes to the community, but if such efforts detracts from a person’s primary role, it may not be a good thing.
Power balance is rather ambiguous. In one sense, the university may appear to have more “say” in a contract with community members, but community members also have complete control over their own decisions. Both sides need to weigh the pros and cons. Though the university may appear to gain a greater magnitude through recruiting community members in studies, the proportion of benefit is the same for community members in terms of ratio of input and output. For instance, the university has to invest a lot more into a research study whereas community members only have to participate. Thus, it makes sense that the university may achieve a greater gain.
I raised the point in class that universities do not have moral obligations to the community and I’m glad that it received more support in the blogs than it did in class.
Private universities cannot be expected to contribute to projects for the betterment of the community unless there is a benefit for the university itself. Administrators and board members must remain loyal to the fact that Stanford is a private university whose success depends largely on the private donations made by alumni and other philanthropists. Unless money is strictly appropriated to the benefit of the community through the university, it cannot use the endowment for projects that do not meet s strict cost benefit analysis. People like to make the distinction between a university and a business (some do not) but the truth is that the same principles that guide a business must necessarily be applied to a university should it be able to fulfill its intended goal as a facilitator of research and teaching. Stanford has made cuts to many programs following the recent financial crisis and many people lost their jobs in the process. Clearly, in popular moral terms, one would object to such actions. However, it is not the duty of the university to employ people at a cost to its future growth and development. Nor is it the duty of the university to take any measures for the benefit of the community if it does not gain from its generosity. People might say that a university should contribute to its community but we must distinguish opinions and legal obligations. My personal opinion is that if an individual wishes to support the community at his or her own personal cost, that is his/her own prerogative. However, when making decisions for a university, administrators must take into account the fact that money is allocated for specific purposes and unless projects align with the goals of the university, they cannot be funded.