In demonstration of its commitment towards ensuring enhanced operational standards and improved service delivery, Management of the University of Lagos is currently hosting a Fulbright Specialist and Deputy Ethics Officer from the Texas A&M University, Central Texas, USA, Professor Russell Porter.
Prof. Porter is in UNILAG to facilitate a 3-day Intensive Training Workshop on Higher Education Ethics which kicked off on Wednesday, January 29, and runs till Friday, January 31, 2025.
Holding at the Arthur Mbanefo Digital Research Center (AMDRC) of UNILAG, the training is targeted at upscaling the knowledge of faculty members in ways and methods of proactive ethics as well as inculcating its indispensability in promoting standards while also driving excellent service delivery.
Welcoming Professor Russell Porter to UNILAG, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics and Research), Professor Bola Oboh described the training as sacrosanct especially when viewed against the backdrop of the importance of ethics in the tertiary education sector.
While pointing out the disruption and undeniable impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on tertiary education in Nigeria, Prof Oboh harped on the need for all faculty members to embrace caution and recommit to integrity in the discharge of their duties.
She particularly tasked participants to ensure that they replicate the training at their various faculties within 6 months so as to ensure a transfer of the new knowledge acquired at the training.
For day one of the training (Wednesday, January 29, 2025), the facilitator, Professor Russell Porter coached participants in Basic Proactive Ethics Program covering: ethical theories, ethical decision making procedures, its application to research, morals as well as guiding laws and principles of Proactive Ethics Program.
The 3-day Intensive Training Workshop on Higher Education Ethics has the following Objectives:
- Demonstrate an understanding of the broad field of higher education ethics within the framework of the law, and with moral-individual perspectives.
- Identify key ethical theories and ethical decision-making processes to mitigate compliance issues, as well as other higher education ethical issues.
- Develop an ethics-based method to proactively prevent legal issues.
Learning Outcomes of the programme are to:
- Synthesize how higher education ethics contribute to an improved education overall
- Evaluate how ethics planning provides a proactive means to mitigate ethical/legal issues.
- Evaluate different employee positions and how they can interact in an ethical means.
- Synthesize the relationship of faculty members to students and staff.
- Categorize different student interactions and relationships in higher education using ethics to mitigate potential relationship issues.
Report: Gbenga Gbelee
Photography: Ayomide Oloyede
