Ethics test: UC Berkeley wary about relevance

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, May 18, 2007 | by Matt KrupnickSTAFF

BERKELEY -- Fewer than half of UC Berkeley faculty members and other employees have completed a required ethics course that some professors say is irrelevant.

All 160,000 University of California employees were told last year to complete the online course after the institution was stung by newspaper accounts of a series of administrative missteps. Most managers, deans and other administrators statewide completed the training by January, but most Berkeley professors and other employees have not.

Berkeley employees must finish the course by Friday, but less than 40 percent of the faculty and about 44 percent of the remaining staff had completed the training by last week, administrators said. It was not clear how the Berkeley numbers compared to other campuses.

UC Berkeley faculty and administrative leaders said they had received several complaints about the ethics course. Journalism professor Susan Rasky said she finished about two-thirds of the training before giving up.

"If they really cared about this, they wouldn't be doing it this way," she said. "It just seems so Mickey Mouse, so simple-minded."

The 15- to 30-minute course takes employees through a series of scenarios in which a business manager named Edna must decide how to respond.

"In each of the following scenarios, do your best to help Edna choose the path toward ethical fitness," the program tells users.

For example, Edna must decide how to address an employee, Thuvan, who appears to be using her position to gain perks at luxurious hotels. Another employee spends too much time fixing his old cars, and a department manager is spending university money on alcohol.

University leaders could not say what they would do -- if anything -- about employees who declined to finish the course. While the test is mandatory, punishments have not been discussed, said Paul Schwartz, a spokesman for the 10-campus UC system.

"Completing the training is a priority and it will be enforced if need be," he said. "We're hoping we don't have to police this."

Richard Blum, the board's chairman, was not prepared Wednesday to say how the university should react.

"I'll have to see what the attorneys say and what our options are," he said. "I don't know anything about it."

The regents are scheduled to discuss the issue today and have the ultimate responsibility for regulating the policy.

Without a directive from systemwide leaders, campus administrators can do little else than remind employees about their responsibilities, said Berkeley's chief academic officer, Provost George Breslauer, who completed the ethics course in November. The training has little relevance to a professor's job, he said.

"They're galled, and I can understand that gall," Breslauer said. "The vast majority of people here, especially the faculty, probably cannot relate to the situations in the briefing. I didn't feel galled, but I did feel cynical."

Opposition to the quiz on other campuses did not appear to be widespread.

At UC San Diego, faculty leaders said they had not received the same flood of complaints as their Berkeley counterparts.

"A number of people have questioned it, but it hasn't been as burdensome as some online training in the past," said Henry Powell, a UC San Diego neuroscience professor who leads the campus Academic Senate. "These trainings are very valuable because they bring out certain issues."

Online courses have become common tools for university leaders. State law required all employees to take a sexual-harassment quiz -- which penalized employees who finished it too quickly -- and UC officials this week launched conflict-of-interest training for all researchers.

For many employees, the courses are too time-consuming and repeat rules that people already understand, Rasky said.

"This was like a quiz you take when you go to traffic school and the answers are obvious," she said.

Still, she said, "I certainly hope I don't end up on someone's bad faculty list."

Matt Krupnick covers higher education. Reach him at (925) 943- 8246 or mkrupnick@cctimes.com.