Not Easy to Stand and Deliver

As a result of our curriculum revision in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Purdue, we have five core values we intend to inculcate into students.  One of the five is ethics.  As a result, ethics is taught in various forms and fashions in 80% of our core courses.

The ethical objective in my sales course is "Distinguish between ethical and non-ethical behaviors on the part of sales professionals."  The objective is accomplished by first posting a handout with various definitions of ethics and ethical sales practices for the students to study (which is posted on Blackboard to save on paper) for an exam on ethics.  The exam consists of 15 multiple choice and 5 true/false questions covering the six page handout on ethics.  Then there are three mini-case studies with various ethical dilemmas and four courses of action that could be taken with one being the most ethical and one being most unethical out of the four.  The students are instructed to first explain the ethical dilemma posed in the case citing the information they had read in the handout on ethics.  They are then to pick the most ethical choice and say why they chose it and the most unethical and explain why they chose that one. In effect, they are to write three short paragraphs in response to the case.

I am now at my desk grading the case studies completed by the students and the inspiration of this post.  Although multiple choice tests are easy to grade, they do not provide one a glimpse into the thought process of students, especially as they related to ethics.  And that is where it gets difficult to stand and deliver.  It is very difficult to sit at my desk here or at home and grade the essays.  One student did not follow instructions, one student is trying to bullshit her way through the case, another makes the wrong choices, another fails to cite the handout or even explain the ethical dilemma.  One after another I question my decision to assign the case studies in the first place.  And then when it seems as all hope is lost I get to one student's effort that is intelligent, articulate, and completely satisifies the instructions for doing the case.  Ah, perhaps there is hope and then the next one has its problems.  Aaagggghhhhhhhhhh!  I must stand and deliver and continue to read the remaining 50 with the scrutiny given the first.

When all is said and done the grading will be completed.  It will take the better part of the day to do but I will not kill this assignment and write more multiple choice or true/false questions for the next semester or develop a rubric and delegate to my TA's.  I will keep the cases and grade them myself because they provide me an opportunity to glimpse into the critical thinking processes of my students and get a better feel for their perceptions of business ethics, especially in terms of sales.  I can guarantee you that we will have a rich dialogue tomorrow in class as we go through the cases, more than we could have ever had if it were simply a multiple choice and true/false exam.  I also know that the lessons will not be lost on the students and they will retain what was discussed and learned as a result of the cases. 

But that does not mean that I will not dread the prospect of reading and evaluating the efforts of the students in the sales class next fall BUT it is the least I can do to stand and deliver on ethics for my students and our industry.