3. Ethics of care
As mentioned above an EoC should be the central driving force for learning excellence and therefore it is an important lens through which to consider the establishment of a culture of academic integrity while also ensuring a student-centered approach to dealing with academic dishonesty.
Previously the EoC has been considered less in “Western thought”
compared to other ethical concepts such as justice and freedom (Nguyen
et al., 2017). For most institutions, punishment is positioned as a foundational
concept in academic integrity. Very little thinking exists around
caring for students or meeting their support and developmental needs linked to academic integrity. Thus, it is integral that institutions shift their
thinking and practice in order to (1) create an environment where students
do not feel the need to be dishonest to “survive” and (2) focus on
their responsibility to support students, ensuring that there are multiple
support mechanisms in place to improve academic integrity.
In order to reimagine academic integrity, it is important to first establish a vision for transforming the organizational culture and then establish a culture
of academic integrity. As a university is an academic community, these considerations
should not stop at students. Gray (2022) mentions the tendency of
institutions to only focus on the actions and responsibilities of students when
developing policy. However, to establish a culture of academic integrity it is
important to include all role players in development and application. ICAI
(2021) echoes this sentiment indicating that students, academics, and support
staff all have a role to play in establishing a culture of academic integrity.
Academics need to explicitly model academic integrity practices and take
responsibility for the possible effects that current institutional practices might
contribute to student misconduct and adjust approaches accordingly. An EoC starts here. But in order to unpack EoC in relation to creating a culture of
academic integrity or learning excellence, we first need to unpack the concept
of EoC focusing on the moral elements and perspectives behind it. By
unpacking what EoC means for an HEI, we consider the organizational culture
of academic integrity.
Tronto (2013) argues that care is normally an undervalued activity centered
on the less powerful members of society, which at the institutional level
refers to students. She further argues that care should be at the center of the
political agenda and that active or deliberate ethical practice is required. In
the case of academic integrity/misconduct, the political agenda of an institution
creates the culture through policies that oversee academic infringements.
Thus, the incorporation of deliberate ethical practices in disciplinary processes
is needed to ensure that students are not condemned or dehumanized, but
rather that they are treated fairly through RPs when misconduct did occur.
Approaching academic misconduct with an EoC is especially important
in the same way that it is important to model the behavior of academic
integrity. Institutions of higher learning cannot expect to have graduates that
have empathy or offer compassion to peers, colleagues, or people in society if
they do not model it for students through their educational years (Persky,
2021). The development of ethical practices through institutional modeling
of compassion and integrity is not only important for students while studying
but also important for their careers after university as it creates the foundation
for continued ethical practices (West et al., 2004).
The current institutional approach to integrity is that of paternalism where
one assumes that one knows what support and care are needed by those under
one’s care (Feldman, 2020). Institutions should rather seek to understand the
needs of students, which requires building stronger relationships with students
and recentering students at the institutional level. Therefore, the starting point
of taking an EoC approach is to understand the context. If an institution truly
wants to be student centered, the institution should consider a shift in their
approach to learning and teaching by first establishing student needs. A needsbased
approach can reshape institutional culture and redefine the institutions
learning excellence philosophy. Both should inform the curriculum (Fig. 4).
This process applies to academic integrity as well. It should form part
of the bigger strategy of establishing learning excellence as academic
integrity forms part of the fabric of the academic project. Institutions
should stop being paternalistic about their approaches and rather engage
with students about their needs (Feldman, 2020). Tronto (2013) refers to
this as attentiveness; it is the process of recognizing others’ needs first inorder to respond to them. It is also important to note that this attentiveness
to needs is contextual, thus culturally and individually shaped (Henry
& Oliver, 2022). Therefore, the first step for creating a culture of academic
integrity through the lens of EoC is to identify student needs by
involving the students. Not doing this is considered as inattentive.