Transparency Series
View schedule. (PDF 70 kb)
Transparency is a term that has found currency across the professions in an ongoing effort to encourage openness and integrity in the workplace. The university series on transparency issues evolved from faculty conversations focused on taking steps that will ultimately enhance the ethical climate of our university community. In order to achieve this goal, we strive to find a balance between the two ends of the continuum that Florini mentions below:
"Put simply, transparency is the opposite of secrecy; transparency means deliberately revealing. Transparency is a choice, encouraged by changing attitudes about what constitutes appropriate behavior. Transparency and secrecy are not either/or conditions. They represent two ends of a continuum." Ann M. Florini, The End of Secrecy
The purpose of the Transparency Series, as now shaped in four years of faculty conversations, is to advance ethics, not just across the curriculum, but across the community through conversations that lead to greater understanding, ownership and action regarding matters of ethics in our lives.Each year the Series highlights faculty and student exploration of that year's theme as it relates to the specific matter of a particular course.
Guest presenters from business and the professions also. They discuss their understanding of that year's theme in light of ethical challenges in their respective professions.
Past Themes:
1. Benchmark for Business: Restoring The Trust
2. Toward Transparency: Addressing the Issues
3. 1984: Twenty Years Later: Privacy vs. Security
4. Personal and Social Responsibility
What it is:
A week-long focus on a particular theme related to enhancing the ethical climate of our university and external communities.
How it works:
Two ways to participate:
1) Faculty are invited to consider a specific way that the theme might be reflected in a particular course subject; then,
-Assign a topic for presentation/debate (Faculty can be involved, too)
-Notify Office of Chair in Ethics regarding class meeting time
-Your class will then be listed as a program to which others are invited (Usually, 5-8 students, faculty, community members might come depending on the topic) and we will take care of the details.
2) Faculty who do not wish to be involved as above, your willingness to do the following will be appreciated:
-Note on your syllabus that the week of Nov. 6 is Transparency IV week
-Distribute copies of program (ready in mid October) and give incentive(s) for students to attend one or more and help spread the word!
Why it matters:
Each year, more faculty and students are engaging in conversations regarding issues of integrity and respect. In this fourth year of the Transparency Series (an idea that evolved from faculty conversations), we hope to grow the dialogue and find ways to move it to action (as is happening with the Academic Integrity Initiative).