By Ashu Malik, Guest Writer
As a member of the council, I often get asked two questions: “What does the Honor Council do?” and “How has it helped students?” Essentially what everyone is asking is, “What is the value proposition for all of us?”
Well, one thing Honor Council does is organize events such as Ethics Day. This means that a unique and great networking opportunity is created, where we get a platform to interact with different leaders from both the private sector and not-for profit organizations. At Ethics Day, the Honor Council, faculty, and staff, promote discussion on honor and ethics and talk about the honor code, illuminating our understanding of why we must hold ourselves to serious standards.
Due to the merger with ASU, Honor Council’s roles and responsibilities have changed. We no longer review all academic infringement cases. We can request funding from a larger funding pool to produce events like Ethics Day. Honor Council serves Thunderbird students, and to do our job better, we tried to get a few ideas from you.
Honor Council Meets Students (photo courtesy Sylvia Imbrock)
Last Tuesday, the Honor Council organized a brainstorming session and invited all the T-birds to gather some new thoughts and perspectives that will drive the Honor Council going forward.
While Sylvia Imbrock (MBA ’15, US) and Rafael Salamanca (MBA ’15, US) opened the session and talked about the inception of Honor Council, James Scott, who has been associated with the Council since 2000, talked to us about the Oath of Honor that each of us will have to take on our graduation day. The Oath of Honor will guide us through every decision in our careers.
Mary Drago from ASU Lincoln Center of Ethics shared the best practices through the initiatives taken at ASU to educate its students and staff members about ethics and honor such as Ethics Bowl and Brain Matters.
Some of the amazing ideas that came from you all ranged from case competitions to involvement of T-bird alums. While one group wanted guest lectures on ethics within different industries, another group suggested continuing education credits for contribution towards spreading awareness about ethics.
The Honor Council, dedicated to promoting the Honor Principle in the Thunderbird and ASU community, is more energized than ever. We have great ideas and we ask you – will you join us in implementing them?