Unifying University Ethics With Personal Integrity to Address the Ethical Challenges at American Universities and Colleges in the 21st Century
“The one thing missing from the board of directors of American universities is a holistic view on cultivating a purpose-driven culture to foster good governance and sustainable innovation” — Hubert Rampersad
“American companies, colleges, and universities must reconsider their corrupt DEI policies, ensuring they are fair, transparent, and effective. While it’s important to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion in leadership hiring processes, ensuring that the most qualified individuals are selected based on their expertise and capabilities is equally crucial. Simply hiring leaders in response to the Black Lives Matter and gender movement may not guarantee the desired outcomes and could compromise higher education leadership’s quality. To address these concerns, leaders need to move beyond diversity, equity, inclusion, gender, and race theater and instead focus on implementing sustainable DEI initiatives. Rebuilding trust requires a reconnection with authenticity, humility, and integrity. By fostering empathy and promoting inner alignment, leaders can create an ethical and sustainable culture of ECO-DEI within American companies and education institutions. This shift in focus will ensure that DEI efforts are embedded in the core values and practices of American companies, colleges, and universities, benefiting all community members.” –-Hubert Rampersad
American universities are rife with indoctrination, racism, antisemitism, corruption, politics, faculty bias, mismanagement, corrupt DEI policies, plagiarism, and misleading scientific publications. The Hamas war has highlighted the value of American universities. Higher education in America has become a threat to America. Our corrupt, radical universities feed every scourge, from censorship and crime to antisemitism. Read also “The root causes of our illiberal higher education system.” We can fix the illness of American universities by fostering a culture of ethical campus, academic integrity, and sustainable good governance at these institutions. Read also “American Higher Education in Crisis”.
DEI
DEI at American universities and colleges does not actually promote inclusivity. It is the opposite of diversity of thought. Students are classified into groups based on their race and heritage. DEI is being used as a cover to justify discrimination. Jews are considered “oppressors” by the DEI system, so the discrimination they face is somehow justified by its believers. This kind of ideology at American universities and colleges needs to be eliminated. Read “Why DEI Sucks, How to Fix It”.
Epidemic of Unethical Behavior at American Universities
Some examples of unethical behavior at American universities: The New York Times reported that federal prosecutors charged 50 people, including celebrities and business leaders, for activities involving bribery and academic cheating to gain admission into universities, including Yale, Stanford, and the University of Southern California. Read also, “A Harvard professor raking in over $1 million a year who specialized in ‘dishonesty’ was accused of fabricating research. 3 retractions have already occurred”. Harvard President Claudine Gay Faces Additional Plagiarism Allegations following accusations earlier this week that she had plagiarized portions of her 1997 Ph.D. dissertation and three other published works. Read “Why is Harvard giving Claudine Gay ‘plagiarism privilege’?”, “Higher Ed, Indoctrination and Miseducation”, “Antisemitism issues at elite colleges mask ‘deeper rot’ of DEI dominance in higher education: WSJ editorial” and “Drexel Now Under Investigation By Feds“. Some more related articles: “The Harvard Double Standard”, “It’s clear: Colleges today lack moral clarity”, and “Harvard president plagiarism scandal likely tip of iceberg of widespread academic corruption”.
There is more: Katalin Kariko, a Nobel Prize winner, was not on the tenure track and was told by a University of Pennsylvania official that she was not of faculty quality. Any system that repeatedly snubs someone with the talent to win a Nobel Prize probably deserves scrutiny. Universities tend to focus only on how much a researcher publishes or how widely covered by the media their work is, rather than how innovative the research is: “Nobel Prize winner Katalin Karikó was ‘demoted 4 times’ at her old university job“. She experienced a lot of politics, bias, distraction, rejection, and discrimination at the University of Pennsylvania. Read also “Penn’s Nobel Prize winner wasn’t on the tenure track. How can the system better support talent?”. These are some rare examples of traditional corporate governance at universities not working. Behind all the scandals mentioned above are several common factors, including:
- Poor ethical leadership and management incompetence
- Lack of personal integrity and empathy
- Focus on rules, policies, and guidelines only, with no ethical learning culture
Unethical behavior of the university’s leadership, mismanagement, and violation of corporate governance codes are the main contributors to these scandals. Most American universities have comprehensive corporate governance programs, which are not working. Their traditional approaches to corporate governance are highly formal, bureaucratic, cosmetic, woolly, and non-holistic and, therefore, fail to address the shortcomings mentioned above. Their corporate governance programs worsened things and created a stable basis for more corruption. These programs have been found to fuel corruption instead of remedying it, which is a concerning reality. Remember what Plato said in 340 BC: “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” Why don’t universities learn from Plato and focus on creating a culture of good people, in which personal values are aligned with the laws and embedded in the people’s minds, instead of focusing on corporate governance laws only? Personal integrity is a core value that should be embedded in the culture of any school. School leaders should take responsibility for enforcing this principle among the faculty and administration and promoting it among their students to ensure that it is reflected in their actions so that ethics becomes a way of life.
Sustainable Good Governance at Universities
We need a sustainable solution to the epidemic of unethical behavior at American universities and foster better campus ethics. Better campus ethics starts with the enhanced personal integrity of university leaders, faculty leaders, and managers. I picked up where others left off by launching an innovative and sustainable methodology for
creating a culture of good people at universities, in which high ethical values are aligned with their corporate governance rules, regulations, and guidelines and embedded in their minds. It is based on my book “Authentic Governance: Aligning Personal Governance with Corporate Governance.” A powerful endorsement for this book:
“Authentic governance is a holistic and sustainable approach to corporate governance that integrates personal integrity and personal governance into one overall framework. Dr. Hubert Rampersad has expanded traditional corporate governance concepts to create a new blueprint for fostering a culture of ethical behavior, academic integrity, and sustainable good governance in which formal corporate regulations and personal values mutually reinforce each other. By unifying corporate ethics with individual ethics and making ethics a way of life, he has written an outstanding synthesis that addresses the ethical challenges in the 21st century”.
Authentic governance is a holistic approach that links to personal integrity, personal governance, and corporate governance, as indicated in this Figure.
A strong sense of personal integrity, being attentive, and possessing empathic skills are all critical components of good people. Plato’s philosophy can be applied to universities to establish a culture of good people. This involves prioritizing aligning personal values with corporate governance laws and instilling these values in leadership and faculty’s minds rather than solely focusing on corporate governance rules and regulations. Authentic governance is an innovative approach for cultivating ethical school leaders, faculty members, and students whose values are closely aligned with university values and deeply ingrained in their critical thinking. This will also create a culture of academic integrity in the university. Authentic governance entails the following three elements:
- Personal Integrity: This entails awareness about your actions toward human beings, animals, plants, and the environment by aligning your personal ambition with your behavior and acting.
- Personal Governance: Entails the systematic process of continuous, gradual, and routine personal improvement, steering, and learning based on your personal innovation strategy.
- Corporate Governance: This entails the systematic process of continuous, gradual, and routine corporate improvement, steering, and learning through formal corporate regulations, procedures, and guidelines.
Authentic governance starts with value-based leadership development, embedding personal values in the minds of the university’s governing board members, president, chancellor, administrative leaders, academic senate, and faculty members, and guiding them to reflect on the values sincerely. This approach is one of the first tangible and measurable means to create a way of life within universities characterized by trust, credibility, transparency, personal responsibility, personal integrity, and a high-performance ethical culture. This will have a positive impact on their students and society.
Good university governance must be an informal learning process and a way of life. This ethical process must be consistently promoted and communicated within the university to all stakeholders. In this way, ethical behavior will become routine in the university, and university leadership and faculty will better understand their responsibility for moral behavior. They will know that acting ethically on and off duty is their responsibility. This is a more sustainable, comprehensive, and holistic approach to ethics and social responsibility. Against this background, I propose an organic and holistic approach to corporate governance called authentic governance by integrating personal values and integrity into one overall authentic governance framework, in which formal corporate regulations and personal values mutually reinforce each other. This theory has been borne out through my leadership experiences in the global corporate world over the past 30 years.
Authentic Governance Model for Universities
I have defined authentic governance as the systematic process of continuous, gradual, and routine improvement, steering, and learning that leads to sustainable high performance and ethical excellence. Authentic governance is a constant, honest voyage of discovery involving continuous, gradual, and routine improvement, steering, and learning. By redefining and governing themselves effectively, university members will gain more understanding about their responsibility regarding ethical behavior and understand that it is their responsibility to act ethically, on and off duty. The figure below shows the authentic governance model, which provides an excellent framework and roadmap to systematically and sustainably develop, implement, and cultivate personal and corporate governance. This new governance blueprint is an inside-out approach and focuses mainly on the human side of good governance. It places more emphasis on understanding yourself and the needs of others, meeting those needs while staying true to your personal and university values, improving yourself and your personal integrity continuously, making ethics a way of life and a continuous learning process, and aligning these with formal university regulations, procedures, and guidelines, instead of focusing on exhaustive formal corporate rules, procedures and guidelines only.
The authentic governance model consists of the following phases, which are the building blocks of creating a culture of sustainable good governance at American universities:
- Personal Governance:
a) Personal Ambition: The initial step involves engaging in a reflective process that includes deep thinking, introspection, and self-reflection by school leadership, faculty members, and students. This will also strengthen their critical thinking skills. During this phase, they’ll be introduced to breathing and silence exercises that will aid in developing self-awareness. Self-knowledge is the ultimate goal of this phase. The outcome of this phase will be the creation of their personal mission, vision, and key roles, as illustrated in the diagram below. Through this process, they’ll gain insights into their life and acquire self-knowledge, self-awareness, and self-regulation, which are the building blocks of authenticity, empathy, trustworthiness, integrity, creativity, imagination, and critical thinking. Your personal ambition comprises your mission, vision, and key roles. You can click on this link to view my personal ambition statement. The figure below shows the personal ambition framework.
By practicing breathing and silence exercises, you can better connect with your inner self and find answers to these questions. This will help you to discover your higher purpose. Through this process, you’ll cultivate self-knowledge, self-awareness, self-management, and self-learning, which entails a journey toward personal disruptive innovation, as shown in this diagram:
The best ideas come when you are alone. Self-learning – the ability to gather, process, retain, and evaluate knowledge alone — is the foundation of creativity and imagination. Traditional creativity approaches lack imagination because they neglect self-learning and, because of this, fail to address complex problems. They heavily rely on group meetings and, therefore, miss opportunities to develop innovative and imaginative ideas. Nikola Tesla developed many innovative ideas while working alone for over thirty years. Similarly, Stephen Hawking made significant discoveries while confined to his wheelchair, and Isaac Newton famously discovered gravity while in social isolation.
Remember Nikola Tesla’s statement: “Being alone is when ideas are born. This is the secret of innovation”. Albert Einstein said almost the same: “Albert Einstein said almost the same: “Be a loner. That gives you time to wonder, to search for the truth. Have holy curiosity. Make your life worth living”.
Based on insights acquired through this process, you will also cultivate emotional intelligence skills and become more ethical as you grow more conscious of yourself. Read “How Mindful Meditation Boosts Critical Thinking in the Age of AI” and “Crafting Your Authentic Personal Brand: A 5-Step Guide“. By practicing breathing and silence exercises, you can better connect with your inner voice and find answers to the ambition questions. University leaders and managers should guide their employees and faculty members in doing the same.
b) Personal Innovation Strategy: To bring your personal ambition to life, it’s crucial to act. This means creating a well-rounded action plan or personal innovation strategy based on your mission, vision, and key roles. A personal innovation strategy includes a roadmap to help you develop a stronger mindset and authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills. Without continuous improvement based on your personal innovation strategy, you won’t become a better human being, which will not lead to your long-term growth and success. The following are the five steps to develop your personal innovation strategy:
Your personal critical success factors are the key elements of your ambition and objectives. These factors are broken down into four perspectives: internal, external, knowledge and learning, and financial. Your personal innovation strategy helps you turn your personal ambition into manageable, measurable objectives and milestones in a balanced way. Using this strategy, you can effectively manage your time and become more disciplined, proactive, innovative, ethical, and empathetic. Please click on this link to view my personal innovation strategy. University leaders and managers should guide employees and faculty members in developing their personal innovation strategy.
c) Personal Governance: Once you have established your personal innovation strategy, it is essential to consistently implement, maintain, and cultivate it to manage yourself effectively and continuously improve your ethical skills. I recommend following the PDAC cycle (Plan-Deploy-Act-Challenge) to aid you in this process. This continuous improvement cycle will help you effectively implement your personal innovation strategy, as illustrated in this diagram.
Implementing your personal innovation strategy through the PDAC cycle will lead to self-awareness, happiness, and enhanced authenticity, integrity, empathy, and critical thinking skills. It’s important to regularly update your personal innovation strategy and repeat the cycle to stay current with new challenges and lessons learned. These 50 tips will assist you in implementing your personal innovation strategy effectively. University leaders and managers should guide their employees and faculty members to implement their personal innovation strategy and provide feedback and coaching.
2. Alignment with Yourself: Finding a balance between personal ambition and actions is crucial to achieving sustained personal integrity. This figure illustrates this personal integrity concept:
During this alignment process, it is essential to reflect honestly on the following questions: What are my personal values, and how do they align with my actions? How can I ensure that my actions are consistent with my values? What are the potential consequences of my actions toward others? How can I empathize with others and understand their perspectives? Am I staying true to my values and conscience in my actions? Are my thoughts and actions aligned consistently? How do my values and intentions relate to my current behavior? Is there congruity between my thoughts and my actions? Am I always acting according to my personal ambition and empathetic nature? Does my personal ambition reflect my desire to work with ethics and empathy? Are there any discrepancies between my personal ambition and my empathetic actions? Do I keep the promises I make to myself? How do others perceive me and my values? Do they see me as someone who stays true to my core beliefs and remains authentic to myself? This alignment process is an excellent tool for school leaders, faculty members, staff, and students to act ethically.
Aligning your personal ambition with your behavior is essential to enhancing personal integrity. This involves achieving greater compatibility between the two elements so that they are in harmony, as shown below.
When your personal ambition and behavior match, you can work authentically without any internal conflicts. This will lead to greater empathy, enhanced charisma, transparency, and trustworthiness. It is essential to ensure harmony between your personal ambition and your actions to align your deeds with your conscience. Our conscience is the inner voice that guides us to distinguish between right and wrong, fact and fiction. By listening to this voice, we can gain better insight into our empathic behavior, strengths, and weaknesses, ultimately impacting our solidarity with others. Albert Schweitzer once said: “The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity and empathy with other human beings.”
It takes constant awareness of how our actions affect other people, animals, plants, and the environment to achieve a balance between personal ambition and behavior. We must always question ourselves honestly: Have I acted by my conscience? Have I always done what was right? Have I always acted morally? Have I acted compassionately regularly? To foster better ethics on university campuses and to build a culture of sustainable good governance at universities, I encourage school leaders, managers, and faculty members to formulate their personal ambition and reflect on the balance between their personal ambition and their actions and behavior. They must communicate their ethical standards and values to employees and students and coach them in this alignment process.
3. University Governance:
a) University Ambition: this phase involves formulating the shared university ambition, encompassing the university’s mission, vision, and core values. Harvard University’s shared ambition: The university’s mission is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society through the transformative power of liberal arts and sciences education. The university’s vision is to set the standard for residential liberal arts and sciences education and to create and sustain the conditions that enable all Harvard College students to experience an unparalleled educational journey that is intellectually, socially, and personally transformative. Harvard University aspires to provide education and scholarship of the highest quality — to advance the frontiers of knowledge and to prepare individuals for life, work, and leadership. The university’s values are to be committed to excellence, to be open to new ideas, to be diverse and inclusive, to be respectful of the rights and dignity of others, to be accountable for actions and decisions, and to be committed to positive social change.
b) University Innovation Strategy: This entails the university’s balanced scorecard to continuously improve its governance processes. Harvard University’s strategy is to guide its culture towards inclusive excellence by convening stakeholders, catalyzing strategic efforts, analyzing university-level progress, optimizing investments, and facilitating university-wide coordination.
c) University Governance: the next step is to implement, maintain, and cultivate the university innovation strategy to govern the university effectively and become an ethical institution. This entails the systematic, continuous, gradual, routine corporate improvement, steering, and learning process. This stage also focuses on implementing formal corporate governance regulations, procedures, and guidelines. Harvard University has a governing board that exercises fiduciary responsibility for the University’s academic, financial, and physical resources and overall well-being.
4. Alignment with your University: the emphasis here is aligning your personal ambition with your university ambition to create uniformity of personal and organizational values. To foster better ethics on university campuses and to build a culture of sustainable good governance at universities, I encourage school leaders, managers, and faculty members to formulate their personal ambition and reflect on the balance between their personal ambition and the shared university ambition, as shown in this Figure. They must communicate their ethical standards and values to employees and students and coach them in this alignment process.
By unifying university values with individual values, you will create a strong foundation of peace, integrity, engagement, and learning upon which creativity and growth can flourish, and life within the university will become a more harmonious and ethical experience. It’s about aligning personal and corporate governance and getting the optimal fit and balance between these activities to enhance productivity, create a climate of trust, and stimulate the organization’s engagement, commitment, integrity, and passion. This process is needed because staff members don’t work passionately or expend energy on something they do not believe in or agree with. If there is an effective match between their interests and those of the university, and if their values and the university’s values align, they will be engaged. They will work with more outstanding commitment and dedication toward realizing the university’s objectives. When the personnel’s personal ambition is in harmony with the university’s (are compatible) and combined in the best interest of both parties, the results will be higher productivity and sustainable corporate governance. Employees are stimulated to commit, act ethically, and focus on those activities that create value for students.
To build a sustainable, ethical culture at universities, I recommend introducing an ambition meeting between school leaders/managers and their faculty members/employees. The ambition meeting is a periodical, informal, voluntary, and confidential meeting of half an hour between the parties, aligning the employee’s personal ambition with the shared university ambition as topics and aligning the employee’s ambition with his/her behavior. This tool fosters ethical awareness among school leaders, faculty, staff, and students. It is recommended to be held structurally at least once every two months. The outcome of these informal meetings should be highly confidential and kept out of the personnel file. The school leader/manager plays a crucial role in this process. He/she should be a trusted person, coach, mentor, and role model. One needs a confidential, informal, and friendly atmosphere of trust and open communication to talk about the individual’s personal ambition. This is essential as human values will be discussed.
The effective combination of all these four phases in this model creates a stable basis for creating a culture of ethical campus, academic integrity, and sustainable good governance at American universities. This authentic holistic approach should, therefore, be included in the curriculum. It will also help students be ethical.
Read “How to Restore the Higher Purpose of American Higher Education”.
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Hubert Rampersad, Ph.D., is a Dutch-American visionary leader in innovative solutions for genuine sustainability, disruptive design innovation, critical thinking in the age of AI, authentic personal branding, and entrepreneurial leadership. He holds a Ph.D. in Innovation Sciences, an MSc in Technology Engineering & Robotics, and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from leading accredited universities in the Netherlands/Europe (Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology). He is a well-known futurist, advocating for genuine sustainability on a global scale. With extensive knowledge and expertise, he has authored 25 books on the topics above in many languages and is highly regarded for his insights in these fields. One of his books, “Total Performance Scorecard,” has been published in 20 languages. Dorothy Leonard, an innovation professor at Harvard Business School, wrote the book’s foreword. Rampersad has also previously served as a guest lecturer at MIT Sloan and was featured in BusinessWeek. He was a design innovation coach at ASML, the most important tech company in the world and “Europe’s most valuable tech firm“.
Orlando, Florida | tpsi@live.com | Phone/WhatsApp: +13053992116 | skype: h.rampersad | About the author https://bit.ly/2CQLIfS
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