Ethics, Integrity and Civility in Higher Education:

New Approaches to Foster a Culture of Trust© Neil Hamilton

University of St Thomas School of Law

HolloranCenterfor Ethical Leadership in the Professions

We Face the Same Challenges Across the Professions:

We want to foster the

Professional Formation/Professionalism of

Each New Entrant and Each Practicing

Professional To Internalize and

Live Out the Ideals and Core Principles of the

Profession Including Civility.

Acculturation of Members into the Social Contract of the

Profession

Three apprenticeships necessary for entry and advancement in all the peer-review professions:

– From Educating Lawyers, and Educating Clergy, Educating Physicians, Educating Nurses, and Educating Engineers, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

First Apprenticeship:

–cognitive or intellectual apprenticeship of the profession’s unique analytical skill applied to the profession’s doctrinal knowledge

Second Apprenticeship:

– practical apprenticeship of the other skills necessary for professional effectiveness

Third Apprenticeship:

– apprenticeship of professional identity formation (The apprenticeship of formation into an ethical professional identity is professionalism)

Based on over fifty site visits to study how professional schools educate lawyers, physicians, clergy, engineers, and nurses, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching president Lee Shulman found that

“The most overlooked aspect of professional preparation was the

formation of a professional identity with a moral core of service and

responsibility”

…around which each student’s habits of mind and practice are organized.

Educating Physicians (2010)

Across Higher Education for the Professions…

“The chief formative challenge” is to help each student change from thinking like a student where he or she learns and applies routine techniques to solve well-structured problems toward the acceptance and internalization of responsibility to others and for the student’s own development toward excellence as a practitioner at all the competencies of the profession.

Bill Sullivan, TEACHING MEDICAL PROFESSIONALISM (2009)

The Heart of the Third Apprenticeship:

The Acceptance and Internalization of Responsibilities to Others Over a Career

Who are the “Others” to whom a Professor is Internalizing Responsibility?

Over a Career, a Professor Internalizes Responsibility to Serve:

– Students

– Colleagues

– The University/College

– The Discipline

– The Profession

– Society: locally; nationally; globally

– Staff is co-educators?

– Others?

Two General Questions Focused on Professional Formation

Question 1: What is the background on the term “professional formation”? What are the elements of professional formation?

Question 2: What does empirical evidence suggest are the most effective pedagogies to foster professional formation?

Question 1:

What is the background on the term “professional formation”? What are

the elements of professional formation?

Age and Mental Complexity: The View Thirty Years Ago

“Mental Complexity” in the following two figures measures growth toward an internalized moral compass that is a less egocentric,

more responsible and more penetrating grasp of reality regarding human relationships.

13

Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How To Overcome It and Unlock Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (2009)

Age and Mental Complexity: The Revised View Today

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Constructive-developmental Growth

Robert Kegan, Harvard – Lifespan Developmental Psychologist

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Self Authored (Stage 4)Individual can step back and distance from

emotions or fusion with the group. Internalized moral core of responsibility for

others and less egocentric.

Socialized (Stage 3)Group affiliation drives individual decisions,

values, or behavior.

Instrumental (Stage 2)Egocentrism, self-interest dominates, thinking

is dualistic, perspective taking limited

Stages of Professional Identity Development Among Law Students, Early Career, and Exemplary Lawyers

© Hamilton & Monson, 2011; 2012; Hamilton, Monson, & Organ, 2013

Percent

Suggested Citations: Neil W. Hamilton, Verna E. Monson, & Jerome M. Organ, Empirical Evidence that Legal Education Can Foster Student Professionalism/Professional Formation to Become an Effective Lawyer (January 22, 2013). University of St. Thomas Law Journal, 2013, U of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 13-01. 

Stages of Professional Identity Development Among U.S. Professional Military

Percent

George Forsythe, Identity Development in Professional Education, Academic Medicine, Oct. 2005, Invited Address, 80(10), pp S-112-S-117. Retrieved October 11, 2011 from http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/fulltext/2005/10001/identity_development_in_professional_education____.29.aspx

Professional Formation Captures Developmental Growth

Five Carnegie studies use different terms for the third apprenticeship, including

• professionalism

• formation of a professional identity

• ethical comportment

• professional formation

Educating Physicians (2010) “Adopts professional formation rather than professionalism to emphasize the developmental and multi-faceted nature of the construct.”

• “An ongoing self-reflective process involving habits of thinking, feeling, and acting.”

• “A lifelong commitment to continued progress toward excellence on the aspirational goals of the profession.”

Professional Formation: The Meaning of Professionalism for Exemplary

Lawyers:

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1. Moral core or moral compass, including:

• deep sense of responsibility to others • trustworthiness in relationships with others

(including clients, colleagues, the profession, the justice system, broader society)

• honesty with self and others as an important basis of trust

Professionalism for Exemplary Lawyers:

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2. Ongoing reflection and learning:

a. from mistakes or losses, including• professional setbacks, i.e., failing to meet internalized

standards of excellence, or losing important cases;• personal setbacks, i.e., experiencing depression or loss

of loved ones; andb. about the limitations of the status quo of legal

practice, including • alternative methods of practice (e.g., mediation); and• the limitations of the justice system in serving the poor

or oppressed, or imbalances of power.

Professionalism for Exemplary Lawyers:

3. Self-assessment of how the meaning of professionalism has evolved:

• Continuous dynamic growth in understanding and internalizing the meaning of professionalism (including reflection and learning from mistakes).

Professionalism for Exemplary Lawyers:

4. Counseling the client, including:• giving independent judgment

• candid and honest counsel informed by the lawyer’s moral core

• lawyer as facilitator helping client think through long-term interests in the context.

Faculty Professional Formation/Professionalism

• “Faculty professionalism” defines the ethical duties required by the social contract for each professor as well as for the relevant groups of professional peers.

• The greater the faculty’s professionalism, the greater the deference the faculty merits.

• Five principles of faculty professionalism capture the correlative duties of academic freedom, including a faculty member’s contributions to peer review and shared governance. These constitute an ethical professional identity for a professor.

First Principle

Each professor should, over a career, grow in personal conscience in the professional context of the other four principles of professionalism in carrying out the duties of the profession.

Second Principle

Each professor agrees to meet the ethics of duty —

the minimum standards of competence and ethical conduct set by peers within both the profession and discipline and within the university

(including attending to the stated mission of the institution).

Third Principle

Each professor should strive, over a career, to realize the

ethics of aspiration —

the ideals and core principles of the academic profession, the professor’s discipline, and the professor’s institution including internalizing the highest standards for professional skills.

Fourth Principle

Each professor agrees to act as a fiduciary (with the corresponding duty to avoid conflicts of interest) where his or her self-interest is over-balanced by devotion to serving both the students through teaching and the advancement of knowledge through scholarship.

Fifth Principle

Each professor and the members of the faculty as a collegial body agree to:

1) hold each other accountable to meet the minimum standards of the profession, the discipline, and their institution

2) to encourage each other to realize the ideals and core principles of the profession, the discipline, and the institution.

ETHICS OF DUTYMinimum Competence and

Ethical Conduct

EMPIRICAL PROFESSIONAL ETHICS: A Developmental Model of Professionalism for the Professorate*

*Adapted from Hamilton (2008), Rest (1983), and Boyatzis’s (1982) model developing managerial competencies, this graphic (1) shows most observable skills and behavior as the outer layer, as well as the inner social-emotional and cognitive capacities of morality, and (2) suggests a dynamic process among the three dimensions of professionalism.

© Neil Hamilton and Verna Monson, 2009.

Required Performance Above the Floor of Incompetence, Unethical or Unlawful Conduct, or Neglect of Duty

Required Performance Above the Floor of Incompetence, Unethical or Unlawful Conduct, or Neglect of Duty

•Intellectual Honesty (a) acknowledgement of academic debt &(b) honest, accurate, and rigorous

investigation & recording of evidence.

•Commitment to Improvement and Excellence of Teaching, Research, & Service

•A Model for Students of Best Scholarly & Ethical Standards

•Peer Review

•Fair Share of Shared Governance

•Respect for Others

•No Conflicts of Interest

•Protection of Academic Freedom

•Intellectual Honesty (a) acknowledgement of academic debt &(b) honest, accurate, and rigorous

investigation & recording of evidence.

•Commitment to Improvement and Excellence of Teaching, Research, & Service

•A Model for Students of Best Scholarly & Ethical Standards

•Peer Review

•Fair Share of Shared Governance

•Respect for Others

•No Conflicts of Interest

•Protection of Academic Freedom

The development and integration of personal and professional ethics over a career represent the highest level of professionalism.

ETHICS OF ASPIRATIONCore Principles & Ideals of the Profession

Knowledge, Skill, and Conduct Observed

PERSONAL CONSCIENCERest’s Four Component Model of Morality (1983)

INTERIOR (INTRAPERSONAL) CAPACITIES •Perceptual Clarity & Empathy

•Judgment & Reasoning•Moral Motivation & Identity

and

CONSCIENCE IN ACTION(Interpersonal Abilities)

Social-Emotional & Cognitive Capacities

Question 2:

What does empirical evidence suggest are the most effective

pedagogies to foster professional formation?

Pedagogies of Professional Formation

Rest’s Four Component Model capacities include:

Perceptual clarity and empathy (moral sensitivity) – awareness of the moral dimensions of issues

Moral judgment – moral schema preferences (personal interests, maintaining norms, postconventional) – reflected as justifications for moral decisions

Moral motivation / identity formation – role concepts and underlying values of what it means to be a good professional

Moral implementation -- interpersonal relationship abilities, conflict resolution, teamwork, negotiation, communication

Common Pedagogies Showing No Assessable Benefit on any Four Component Model Capacities

• Ethics/philosophy/jurisprudence courses focused on doctrinal knowledge and critical analysis without reflective exploration of student’s own moral core

• One-time short programs (need weekly meetings over three weeks or longer)

• Fear-based programs

Most Effective Pedagogies for Professional Formation

1. Stage Appropriate Educational Engagements

– Since students and practicing professionals are at different developmental stages in terms of the four component model, pedagogies should be stage-appropriate.

– Pedagogies ask each student and practicing professional to explore the meaning of topics covered for the person’s internalized moral core.

– Required/Elective courses

Most Effective Pedagogies Cont.

2. Cognitive Disequilibrium and Optimal Conflict– Central to constructivist pedagogies of morality or

professional formation is the idea that we need to experience cognitive disequilibrium within a context of psychological safety. Some examples:

– Dialogues with others that help gain insights into the limitations of our current way of knowing

– Dilemma discussions that examine the problem using different lens or frames -- feedback on analysis

– Always stage-appropriate questions

“Optimal Conflict”• Problems and questions must represent a “persistent

experience of some frustration” or “quandary” (for the individual student);

• Problems and questions must challenge one’s assumptions and beliefs or “our current way of knowing;”

• Underlying issues must connect deeply to who we are and what we value; and

• Must have sufficient social support from others in order to be effective – must monitor so the person does not become overwhelmed, and also must ensure she or he cannot “escape or diffuse” the conflict.

Kegan & Lahey – Harvard – “Immunity to Change,” (2009)

Most Effective Pedagogies Cont.

3. Habit of Feedback, Dialogue, and Reflection (FDR) – Through repetition and rehearsal throughout the

University’s culture, help each professional internalize the habit, on issues involving professionalism, of:

• Actively seeking feedback from others

• Dialogue with others about the tough calls

• Self-reflection

Practicing FDR will Foster Growth in Professional Formation

• Small group discussion of ethical dilemmas

• Mentoring

• Coaching

• Modeling

• Peer-to-peer conversations

Most Effective Pedagogies Cont.

4. Multiple Opportunities for Formative Assessment

• formative assessment – aimed at providing constructive feedback

• start with self assessment

• multiple measures and multiple assessors increase the validity of the assessment

What if the Iowa State Faculty Senate were to pass a resolution on professional formation similar

to what the ABA resolved in 1974?

1974 Resolution of Annual Meeting of the ABA House of Delegates

“Whereas,

the survival of the legal profession to the benefit of the communities and clients it serves is directly affected by the maintenance of the highest possible professional standards, and

Whereas,

the training in the area of professional

standards, responsibilities and conduct is an integral and indispensable part of quality legal education;

now therefore be it

Resolved,That the standards for the Approval of Law Schools be amended to read as follows:

302(a)(iii): and provide in their curricula a course for credit required for graduation on the subject of the legal profession covering its history and traditions, its future potential, ethics, professional conduct and attorney-client relations.”

2011 Proposal for a Resolution of the Iowa State Faculty Senate

“Whereas,

the survival of the academic profession to the benefit of the communities, institutions, and students it serves is directly affected by the maintenance of the highest possible professional standards, and

Whereas,

training in the areas of professional standards, responsibilities and conduct is an integral and indispensible part of quality education for the professorate,

now therefore be it,

Resolved:

The university shall provide a course required for each professor on the subject of the academic profession, covering its history and traditions, its future potential, ethics, and professional conduct.”

Questions?