The University plans to found the country's first postgraduate training program for teachers of ethics in professional fields such as medicine, law and business.
President Bok said recently he commissioned a committee to develop the program because he felt most of the people teaching professional ethics come primarily from with in their fields and do not have sufficient back grounds in philosophy.
"What is missing in this country is any program to prepare people rigorously to teach these courses that is comparable to the kind of systematic preparation that people get to teach in most other courses said Bok.
Interscholastic
The program will draw from all of the University's faculties, and students will be fairly free to design their plans of study to suit their interests, he said Students will probably take some sort of basic course or tutorial and then choose electives from any area of the University during the year long program.
The committee that developed the program, chaired by Divinity School Dean George E. Rupp, delivered its report to Bok last week, and members said they found the president enthusiastic about their proposal Members declined, however, to discuss the specifics of their report, deferring to Bok, who initiated the work.
After Rupp's committee delivered its report to Bok, the president discussed the project with the deans of the various faculties.
"We all think it's a very good idea," said Dean of the Graduate School of Education Patricis A. Graham. "The issues of professional ethics are clearly of interest to the University and professional schools but they really haven't been addressed," she added.
Graham said that at the deans meeting, "the prime issue was: does the University want to be involved in this? And the answer is definitely, yes."
Rupp said only that the project was interesting and that he hoped the committee's work would be useful. The committee included members from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Law School, Medical School, Business School and Ed Schools.
Details, Details
Before the plan's specifics are made public, details of administration, finances and staff must be worked out, sources said.
Bok said the two major stumbling blocks to implementing the program were finding money to fund it, and someone to head it--a problem he mentioned as especially difficult because of the shortage of qualified people.
He said that because of other time pressures during May and June he did not expect the and somehow have found a way to survive.
"The only thing that can stop us now," Kleinfelder says, "is ourselves. And that hasn't happened all year We've always found a way to win."
