[spodek]

I like their goals, but the traditional academic implementation described in the article and in the syllabus the article linked to won't achieve them.

If you want people to learn behavior, you can't lecture them into it, nor will talking about case studies or writing papers help. Look at the behavior those classes teach: analysis, reading, writing, debating other people's behavior.

Active, experiential, project-based, exercise-based learning will do the trick. Many professors think "flipping the classroom" or having more class discussions is active or experiential, but it rarely is.

You have to get students acting on their values, feeling their own values conflicting with each other on projects they care about involving people in their lives that they care about, having others depend on their actions, having to perform on something they created, not spelled out for them in a case study. Then they learn empathy, compassion, responsibility, initiative, self-awareness, and ways to act in challenging situations.

If you want to be an artist, you have to practice making art. Art appreciation classes won't hurt, but they won't help, any more than reading about or discussing lifting weights will build muscle.

The classes they describe are ethics appreciation or leadership appreciation. Well-intentioned, but limited.

[ebenrock]

This is very much like the gender imbalance in tech - starting to address it in college only provides a band-aid. This is a much deeper issue that starts soon after birth.

As a CMU grad student they had the Reasonable Person Principle to help guide your actions and interactions. The principle states nothing about ethics, but generally that you should be open to others' concerns, practice self-reflection, and even accept that their viewpoints differ from yours. In spite of this principle being in place I definitely dealt with at least one very unreasonable person during my graduate studies there.

I've been in several ethical conundrums in my career. In a couple cases my choice was the "lesser" unethical option among many. It can be difficult to make those choices when your career or employment is on the line. I've left jobs because I believed (or knew) the work I was doing wasn't quite on the level.

Trying to recreate these scenarios, realistically, in a class room is pretty hard. Having discussions about ethics is nice, but probably not very effective. Could you build a course, or assignment, where the only way to get an A is to cheat or act unethically? Would that even be ethical for the university to offer?

In my cynicism, this looks like a "cover-our-asses" maneuver by universities, at least in part.

[rvo]

The Reasonable Person Principle was the best thing I learned from CMU

* Everyone will be reasonable.

* Everyone expects everyone else to be reasonable.

* No one is special.

* Do not be offended if someone suggests you are not being reasonable

[hopw_roewur_ne]

Soon after birth? Partly, but this is a much deeper issue that starts soon after conception. Actually scratch that, it started soon after sexual reproduction and therefore sexual selection was introduced about a billion years ago.