During the summer of 1991, I participated in a seminar for IIT faculty with the unusual topic of ethics. Having taken several courses in philosophy during my undergraduate studies, I approached the seminar intellectually, wondering what I would learn about ethics in the profession. The seminar leaders, however, had a practical agenda-preparing faculty to incorporate ethics into technical course. Rather than sit back and listen, we were provoked to think for ourselves; rather than being placated, we were forced to debate; rather than taking our promise to integrate ethics into our courses, they asked us to get up in front of our colleagues and show what we would do.

During the next two years, I had the opportunity to try out what I had learned, in three different programs: a freshmen lab course; a programming course in computer science; and an upper level course in multimedia.

1. HAWK, or Hands-On-Workshop, is a university-wide on: credit, course taken by every IIT freshmen regardless of major (about 400 each semester). Its purpose is to present freshmen with a range of problems from a variety of disciplines to widen their awareness of the professions, to ease their advising, and to teach them how to use a personal computer productively.

2. CS 200, Introduction to Computing II, teaches students from computer science and engineering the basics of programming. It has a lecture and closed lab format. (Approximately 100 students enroll each semester, on-site or remote via microwave).

3. CS 460, Fundamentals of Multimedia, introduces students to a wide range of media and their integration. The course also has a lecture and open lab format. (Approximately 60 students enroll each semester on-site, remote via microwave, or remote via satellite).

Because HAWK is a university wide requirement, students may be in IIT's Institute of Design, College of Architecture, Armour College of Engineering and Science, Lewis College of Humanities and Social Sciences, or the Stuart School of Business. One way we introduced ethics into HAWK was by having students secure a copy of the professional code of ethics corresponding to their major. Each faculty member teaching HAWK was provided with a contact in the Ethics Center who would provide codes.

In my own HAWK section, I began a class period by asking students to agree on the meaning of ethics. I then presented a problem situation related to the use of computers and asked them to assume varying roles in its resolution. On the conclusion of the period, we compared their resolution with that of the Code of Ethics of the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). Not surprisingly, they were very similar.

Almost all of the students were positive in their review of this class period. They thought that it would make a difference in their professional lives. The most common comment was that the exercises and discussion would help them identify ethically problematic situations. The only student who did not agree felt that he was already an ethical person and had heard nothing he didn't know. Very refreshing!

CS 200, a programming course, presented a challenge: How could I engage these students? I had them do a short exercise in lab (some coding). The following lecture period I suggested that they exchange their work with the student next to them, even if the other student did not complete the assignment. The students were not pleased about sharing their coding. This led to a lively discussion about copyright and the illegal copying of computer software. A general discussion about professional ethics followed.

Multimedia is one of the "hot" topics of the 1990's. It implies the integration of sound, graphics, imagery, animation, video, and text. The students in CS 460 are approximately half upper-level undergraduates from many disciplines and half corporate students from such institutions such as Argonne National Laboratory, Motorola, and IBM. Many of the students are from Korea, China, India, Afghanistan, Russia, and the like.

Many of the regular topics covered in lecture involve cultural diversity. For example, in our discussion of color presentation and publishing, we considered how colors are understood in various culture. Which colors are associated with death, sex, female and male, or religion can differ dramatically between cultures. An awareness of such differences is important.

The higher academic level of the audience in Fundamentals of Multimedia necessitated a more innovative approach to ethics than I took in HAWK or CS 200. Given the cultural diversity I thought that a discussion of the differences between moral and ethical conduct was appropriate. I began the session with a self-test. The students were told to make two columns on a sheet of paper, number from 1 to 4 in each column, and then answer for themselves in the first column and for the population as a whole in the second.

The four questions were moral ones: Do you believe killing is wrong? Do you believe stealing is wrong? Do you believe wanting what others have is wrong? Do you believe using profane language is wrong? The survey results (which I shared with them) demonstrated that, while individuals saw themselves as "moral," they tended to view the community as "amoral".

We then discussed this overall lack of a sense of community. The discussion led us to a definition of ethics emphasizing community. Along the way we discussed the ethics of morphing software, where one image can be altered into another, the use of camcorders in capturing video, the use of microphones to capture sound, and the use of graphics, video, sound, and a variety of multimedia techniques now available. We also discussed how cultural differences may affect the way multimedia products should be used.

The students' responses to this were quite positive. I intend to do something similar in coming semesters of this course.

Overall, the students liked the ethics exercises, discussions, and activities in each of the three courses. But I had some difficulties. Once a discussion of ethics began, I found it difficult to keep students from straying into the black abyss of unethical practices of politicians, businessmen, and professionals. In particular, students wanted to describe examples of software copying or distortion of graphics they had witnessed.

The first academic year in which we attempted to integrate ethics into the undergraduate curriculum was difficult. Faculty were often not aware of their own profession's code of ethics. Some had more than a single code to reconcile. Forcing all first year students to become "code-literate" pressured faculty to discuss the codes with students. It was an interesting year. The next year was much easier; ethics was a popular topic for faculty over lunch.

I am pleased to be associated with a university which has taken an institutional approach to ethics.