Statement of Ethics

Universities seek to preserve, disseminate, and advance knowledge. At CWRU, as elsewhere, we recognize that to fulfill these purposes requires a norm of expected conduct shared by all in the university community, governed by truthfulness, openness to new ideas, and consideration for the individual rights of others, including the right to hold and express opinions different from our own.

The university's mission rests on the premise of intellectual honesty in the classroom, the laboratory, the office, and the solitary examination desk. Without a prevailing ethic of honor and integrity not only in scientific pursuits but also in all scholarly activity, the very search for knowledge is impaired. In these respects, each of us—especially but not exclusively faculty—must regard ourselves as mentors for others.

These principles we strive to uphold make it possible for the larger society to place trust in the degrees we confer, the research we produce, the scholarship we represent and disseminate, and the critical assessments we make of the performance of students and faculty, as well as judgments of staff and administrators.

To safeguard the standards on which we all depend, each of us must, therefore, accept individual responsibility for our behavior and our work and refrain from taking credit for the work of others.

The culture of a university also requires that the rights of all be protected, particularly by those entrusted with authority for judgment of the work of others.

The university being a human community is subject to human failings, ambiguities, and errors. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the bodies regulating the affairs of faculty, students, and staff to maintain processes for judging and resolving instances where these principles may have been violated. However, all such systems depend for their effectiveness, in turn, on the acceptance of common norms of contact—the ties of trust which bind the university community together.