If not doing it at your program or in your class, I highly recommend a heavy dose of ethics assignments for students. I went over the results of the ethics mini-cases today in my class. It is a sobering day in the semester because it turns out that the moral compass of today's students -- a significant enough portion of the class based on today's experience anyhow -- do not have a sense of true north.
It is evidenced in the push back I get each time when students discover that they chose a course of action that was unethical and lost points for it on the exam. There are probably two things going on here. The first is that they think that whatever effort they put into an assignment they should get an A. Perhaps we can trace that sense of entitlement back to when most of them played youth sports and win or lose everyone got a trophy. The second point is that they have discovered that they chose an unethical course of action that others like them see as no problem whatsoever. It also turns out that some of the courses of action they chose for one case in particular is a business practice used by many in our industry that misrepresents the truth to extract a few more dollars out of unsuspecting customers.
The experience shakes many to the point that I am still getting e-mails tonight for students wanting to get more points, meet with me to discuss why their choice is ethical (when it is not), they did not understand the assignment, blah, blah, blah -- regardless of the fact that they had a black and white ethics handout to study for the exam.
In retrospect I love today. I stood and delivered. It is one of those days where the tuition dollar they pay to get "educated" pays big dividends now as a student. I only hope it stays with them in their careers to help shape a more ethical hospitality industry in an age where ethics takes a back seat to producing more and more and more profits, like the fraudulent Goldman and Sachs.
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