Fall 2007 -- Vol. 60, No. 4

Turn on CNN or network news, and you’ll see the latest parade of high-profile personalities who, oops, just made another bad decision. It’s a daily dose of the good, the bad and the ugly.

The uglier scandal, of course, gets the news coverage, but there never seems to be a shortage of good people making bad choices.

And it appears to start earlier and earlier in life. In fact, a recent national survey indicates that more than 70 percent of college students admit to having cheated. High school may be even higher.

Clemson’s Robert J. Rutland Institute for Ethics was founded six years ago to reverse the “bad choice” trend, beginning at the college level. One: by making students aware of ethical decision-making as the basis for personal and professional success. Two: by providing the tools and developing skills to approach ethical problems in a systematic, reflective and responsible way.

In just a few years, the Rutland Institute has gotten such good reviews that the national Center for Academic Integrity, formerly at Duke, recently chose Clemson for its new home.

Can Clemson really teach integrity?

“Probably not,” says Dan Wueste, director of Clemson’s Rutland Institute for Ethics. “But we don’t attempt to teach integrity. Integrity is something a person has to achieve and then one has to maintain it, which is a lifelong project. Our aim is to help students develop the awareness and skills they will need to meet these challenges.

“We give students a clearer understanding of how their choices affect other people,” says Wueste. “Knowledge pretty much discounts those common responses — ‘I just didn’t think about it’ or ‘everyone does it.’ Decisions, good or bad, become a matter of personal responsibility.”

The University lets each student know early on that ethical behavior is woven into the Clemson experience and expected of each member.

Entering freshmen view a student-written and produced DVD with an introduction of Clemson ethics by President Jim Barker and a series of vignettes for discussion. These short scenes represent some likely situations they’ll face as college students and allows for discussion of possible choices.

Each student gains an understanding of ethical decision-making as part of his or her undergraduate career because Clemson takes an ethics-across-the-curriculum approach, regardless of major. More than 300 faculty members have already received instruction and resources in integrating ethics into regular courses, and each department is shaping requirements and teaching methods to fit its own character.

The institute also sponsors an ethics bowl team, the annual J.T. Barton Jr. Ethics Essay Scholarship Competition, and other special events for students throughout the University. Clemson’s new Creative Inquiry focus for all undergraduate students can easily accommodate an ethics component.

The Rutland Institute partners with Student Affairs, Undergraduate Studies, the Graduate School, the Pearce Center for Professional Communication, the Spiro Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership and other academic units.

The Center for Academic Integrity, which is now within the Rutland Institute, will be working with the Eugene T. Moore School of Education on a pilot program for future teachers. It will prepare them to be proactive in teaching P-12 students about academic integrity, which, in turn, will help them promote integrity in schoolwork and in life.

Not just for students

Beyond the Clemson campus, the Rutland Institute reaches out to middle and high school teachers through the S.C. Institute for Service-Learning and Ethics. It has a continuing education program for architects, and it is expanding its involvement with the business community through collaboration with the College of Business and Behavioral Science.

The institute sponsors forums for the community through the Presidential Colloquium and other outreach opportunities.

Institute director Wueste is a leader in the national ethics field. A sought-after speaker for ethics-related events at universities throughout the country, his work has appeared in a variety of journals including Cornell Law Review, Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Teaching Ethics and Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing.  

Professional engagements recently have taken him to Kuwait, Guam and China. He will be traveling to Ireland and Australia in the fall.

Wueste is president of the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum and was a member of the board of directors of the Center for Academic Integrity when it was an independent nonprofit organization. He’s joined at Clemson by Rutland Fellows, who are top professors and scholars.

With the addition of the Center for Academic Integrity, the institute will be able to conduct more research, reach more students, better serve the business community and other professions and ultimately help good people make fewer bad choices.

“With the Rutland Institute and the Center for Academic Integrity,” says Wueste, “Clemson can further develop its strengths and unique character, while enriching the students who become a part of it.”

The bottom line in Clemson’s emphasis on ethics is this: No program can guarantee that students, professionals and other individuals will make right decisions, but it can develop essential skills and instill in each an awareness of the need to consider fairness, effect on others and personal responsibility.

Preparing students for this lifelong endeavor, Clemson considers a good choice.

Robert J. Rutland

The opening of Clemson’s ethics center, now institute, was made possible by a gift from Robert Rutland, an Atlanta businessman who places a high premium on ethics. In the early 1960s, Rutland was an industrial management major at Clemson. Past chairman of Allied Holdings Inc., a public company, he believes in the importance of a personal and corporate code of ethics.

“Ethics is the connection of the intellect with the soul of a person in the decision process, both professionally and personally,” says Rutland. “The institute has an essential part to play in the University to prepare students for the decision-making that will occur post graduation. We also have envisioned reaching out into the community to provide similar assistance to people applying ethics in real-life situations. We have a great window of opportunity today that cannot be wasted.”

For more information about the Rutland Institute for Ethics and Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson, go to www.clemson.edu/caah/rutland or contact Dan Wueste at (864) 656-6147 or ernest@clemson.edu.