Being the departmental association vice president in the university, one had faced some ethical dilemmas. Everyone faces certain difficulties and ethical dilemmas during their lifetime and career, but it is very important to resolve them in the correct ways. Therefore, one is going to provide the case of the ethical dilemma that he had faced being the departmental association vice president in the university, discuss and analyze it and explain how one resolved it.
One was the departmental association vice president and the professor in the university; he was also the advisor of a student that had a hard relationship with one’s colleague – the professor of physics. At that time, the student was taking the physics semester course.
At the special approved meeting, one’s colleague – the professor of physics had told one, that the given student had challenged his (the physics professor) authority since the semester started. The student demanded that the professor of physics explain his warrant to teach the physics course; he also challenged every single assignment given to the class.
As it had appeared, later on, such a behavior of the student had begun at the beginning of the semester, when the student failed to meet the deadline with the assignment. He told the physics professor that he had been badly ill for a week and that is why was not able to complete the task in time. For this reason, the student asked the professor of physics to extend the deadline for him.
The physics professor gave him the refusal because he knew that the student was telling lies, as the professor had seen him during the given week at the local pub having fun and drinking alcohol. However, the professor motivated his refusal by that it was not possible to give the benefits to some students, while not giving them to others. Since that time, the student’s behavior became such, as described above.
One has been watching the student, as for the last two weeks, the student has been abusing alcohol and not attending physics classes. One asked the student if he was in need of his problem’s discussion with someone, but that student replied that he would be fine and asked not to interfere in his private life.
A day after that, the student’s mother called one and told one that, while talking to her son on the phone, she figured out that the physics professor treated him unfairly and was biased toward him; thus, because of such oppression, he was not able to get good grades at the given class. After that the student’s mother told one that she also talked to the student’s girlfriend that was attending the same classes as her son did; and the girl told her that the student was in great trouble, as he drank a lot of alcohol and did not attend the physics classes at all.
But when the student’s mother talked to the student about that, he told that all this was just nonsense. For this reason, the student’s mother asked one to explain what had, actually, happened with her son. One replied that he was not allowed to discuss the student’s problem with her unless the student gave her permission.
But the student’s mother was desperate and told one that she really needed to know if the situation was so serious that she had to leave her job and fly to the university. Therefore, the ethical dilemma appeared before the one, as one knew that the problem was pretty serious, but one was not permitted to tell it to the student’s mother. That is why one alluded to his thoughts that if it was one’s son he would, actually, came to see him.
Works Cited
Cooper, Russell M., ed. The Two Ends of the Log: Learning and Teaching in Today’s College. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Hafemik, Johnnie Johnson, Dorothy S. Messerschmitt, and Stephanie Vandrick. Ethical Issues for ESL Faculty: Social Justice in Practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2002.
Prichard, Keith W., and R. Mclaran Sawyer, eds. Handbook of College Teaching: Theory and Applications. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004.