Professional Ethical Dilemmas in International Education Leadership

EDU BA820 Subject & Catalog Number

This short course is designed as a structured conversation about professional ethics in practice. Rather than approaching ethics primarily through abstract theory, the discussion and analysis in this course will be based on case studies, including case studies based on the lived experience of students. The course is built on the premise that some of the most important challenges of professional life in education, public service, humanitarian work, philanthropy, and international development have important ethical dimensions. Making values-based decisions can feel particularly challenging as educational leaders try to balance their responsibilities to the many stakeholders they serve. This course will help leaders surface ethical challenges and outline a process and related tools for thinking through those challenges. The aim of the course is not to identify a single ‘correct’ answer to the dilemmas, but to help students develop better habits of professional judgment: clarifying the dilemma, identifying realistic options, recognizing stakeholders, incorporating the perspectives of others and probing the values behind competing views and pathways.