Wataru Kobayashi, Director of Chiba University of Commerce Research Center for Economics

Aim of the special feature in "CUC View & Vision No. 52"

Currently, in our diploma policy, our university lists "high ethical standards" as one of the skills that students should acquire. This is thought to be in line with our university's founding principles, which emphasize "the cultivation of business ethics" in addition to "useful academics." So, what kind of ethics education is actually being carried out at our university? In this special feature, we will introduce the content and management methods of related courses, and consider various issues surrounding ethics education.

The first video introduces the content of "Business and Ethics." The goal of this class is for students to be able to make ethical decisions and act in the way they judge best when they actually work in the future. Case studies are used frequently so that students with little work experience can imagine how they will behave in the real workplace. The course starts with familiar topics that students experience in part-time jobs or jobs immediately after joining the company, and gradually moves to themes that students will encounter when they become managers or executives. In addition, while the first half of the semester uses fictitious cases that simplify the topics to make them easier to handle, the second half deals with actual incidents that have occurred by combining newspaper articles and reports of corporate scandals. Students are required to read this information in advance and submit a definition of ethical issues and a description of what they would do if they were involved. Students are also asked to speak independently during class, which provides an opportunity for them to learn that people's thoughts and judgments differ.

The second video introduces the content of "Environment and Ethics." In this class, ethics is defined as "the source of judgment for words and actions regarding the environment," and the aim is for students to be able to make logical judgments based on their own values. In each class, students are asked to answer questions that do not have a "correct answer" using the clicker function of the portal site. Students are asked to choose from multiple options and explain the reason for their choice. For example, in a lesson on the theme of energy, the question is asked, "If you were to review your energy usage right now, which one would you do?" and options include "Review how much light you leave on and how much standby power your home appliances use, and turn them off frequently" and "Don't review your energy-wasting lifestyle at all." No matter which option is chosen, no points will be deducted, and the evaluation is based solely on the logic of the explanation.

The third video introduces the content of "Information and Ethics." The goal of this class is to "first protect yourself, then protect others, and then protect society and envision the next world." Topics related to information and ethics, such as online flame wars and fake news, are rapidly increasing, so new information is taken from not only existing textbooks but also newspaper articles and television programs as lecture material. Students are asked to submit questions for each class, and the first 20 to 30 minutes of the next class are dedicated to answering the questions. In addition, case stories created as manga are sometimes used as teaching materials. This is intended to provide material for experiential learning and to make students aware of the situation-dependent information embedded in the manga panels. In the final report, students are asked to summarize concepts that they found interesting, and are asked to create "new questions" by setting the task, "If you were the teacher in charge, what kind of questions would you give to students for the final exam?"

The fourth article considers the issue of whether a student's "ethics" can be measured in the same way as knowledge and skills, given that many universities, including ours, include the words "ethics" and "ethical sense" in their diploma policies as requirements for degree awards. First, it examines whether taking ethics courses and receiving high marks indicates a student's high ethical sense. Next, it introduces an initiative to have students self-assess their ethical behavior in fields such as nursing and medical care that have specific ethical codes, and discusses whether such evaluation methods can be used in the educational curriculum of general universities. Furthermore, it focuses on the fact that the ability evaluated in the evaluation tool developed by the Association of American Universities is "ethical reasoning" rather than "ethics" or "ethical behavior," and examines the content in detail.

The fifth article asks how much of a common understanding we, the faculty and staff, have of the university's founding spirit and educational philosophy, and considers the prerequisites for considering "ethics education at CUC (Chiba University of Commerce)". The founding spirit and educational philosophy are posted on the university's official website, but how many people, for example, take a step further and ask about the meaning of "practical learning" written there, or the meaning of "learning useful to the real world" written as a concise expression of that meaning? Also, what is the relationship between learning and ethics, and what is the ethical significance of education? In order to discuss such issues and share an understanding, it is necessary to start by learning about the thoughts and hopes of the university's founder, Professor Endo Ryukichi, and to do so, it is suggested that we start by learning about Professor Endo's life-giving philosophy.