|
Academic Integrity
The Academic Virtues
As a community of study, Concordia College seeks to nurture in all
of our members the human qualities which enable us, individually and
collectively, to engage in our academic enterprise. The academic enterprise,
like any other "coherent and complex form of socially established
cooperative human activity" (MacIntyre p. 175), requires that its
practitioners possess certain qualities which make the academy possible,
and without which it can exist as an academy in name only. These human
qualities, or virtues, make possible not only our collective existence
as a community of study, but also our individual participation in
our chosen fields of study.
Students, faculty, and administrators relate to one another in a way
defined by the purposes and standards which make our community an
academic community. A student may choose to pursue a particular major
in order to become powerful, wealthy, and famous. But power, wealth,
and fame are "external goods" which may be achieved by means other
than pursuing a particular academic major. The purposes and standards
which make our community an academic community of the church are not
concerned primarily with "external goods," but rather with goods which
are "internal" to the various academic disciplines and "eternal" before
God. This also suggests that, to lack integrity, one misconstrues
what we profess to be humanity's ultimate and most worthy goal, to
live with God in a community of perfect justice.
To become a student within a particular discipline is to enter a form
of activity with its own methodology and standards of excellence.
While a discipline's methodology and standards of excellence are not
immune from criticism and change, "we cannot be initiated into [such]
a practice without accepting the authority of the best standards realized
so far" (MacIntyre p. 177).
- As you study a discipline, you learn to appreciate the feelings
or ideas of others, and in so doing you learn to be empathetic.
- As you study a discipline, you learn to distinguish between excellent
and average examples of disciplinary practice, giving each person
(including yourself) what is due them; in so doing you learn to be
fair minded.
- As you study a discipline, you learn that you must expose your ego
and limited knowledge to criticism, and in so doing you learn to be
courageous.
- As you study a discipline, you learn that the quest for knowledge
is never completed, and in so doing you learn perseverance and humility.
The Centrality of Integrity to Academe
Without a commitment to the virtues of fair mindedness, courage, perseverance,
intellectual humility and empathy, the academic enterprise, individually
and collectively, is doomed to failure. Yet none of these virtues
is possible without the central virtue of integrity. When we say that
the Concordia community expects all of our members to act with integrity—to
act with honesty, uprightness and sincerity—we speak in a language
of virtue as well as of duty.
- We say, unequivocally, that dishonesty is always wrong.
- We say that dishonesty is wrong because it is unjust, robbing everyone
of the knowledge of what each person is due.
- We say that dishonesty is wrong because it is cowardly and intellectually
false.
- We say that dishonesty is wrong because cheaters prefer ease and
expediency to hard work and perseverance.
- We say that dishonesty is wrong because it robs the student of the
goods internal to the practice of the student's chosen discipline.
- We say that dishonesty is wrong because the dishonest seek only
the goods external to the academic enterprise, namely, wealth, power,
and fame.
Because academic dishonesty in all its forms is so fundamentally contrary
to the community of study, because it is so fundamentally destructive
of the moral virtues required of those engaged in the academic enterprise,
we must collectively and individually reaffirm the central importance
of the virtue of academic integrity at Concordia College. This document
represents just such a collective and individual reaffirmation of
the core principles of the college. Faculty, students, administrators
and staff members are charged with specific practices and responsibilities
in following these principles. These obligations are described in
full in the Student Handbook. Additionally, faculty follow practices
germane to the fair evaluation of student performance. These practices
are described in the Joint Statement on Academic Responsibility, located
in the Faculty Handbook.
Bibliography
Alasdair MacIntyre. 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. South
Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Richard Paul. 1990.
Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly
Changing World. Rohnert Park, CA: Center for Critical Thinking and
Moral Critique.
|
Registrar's
Office
