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.