This was a week that made me especially grateful that all SCS Master of Professional Studies (MPS) programs have a required course in Ethics. This common feature of the MPS degree programs is a distinguishing characteristic of the commitment at SCS to integrating Georgetown’s Jesuit and Catholic mission and values within the curriculum. While each program designs its own course that reflects the unique discourses and practices of that particular professional discipline, all the offerings in Ethics challenge students to consider the personal formation of professional ethics in light of the University’s mission to form graduates who are “lifelong learners” and “responsible and active participants in civic life” who “live generously in service to others.”
My own gratitude for this feature of academic life at SCS is related to this week’s current events. The distressing smoke billowing throughout much of the United States, including Washington, D.C., due to accelerating forest fires in Canada should awaken our collective conscience to the need for significant changes in human behavior toward the environment. Mission in Motion has previously called attention to the Spirit of Georgetown value, “Care for Our Common Home,” and the mission-critical work of environmental sustainability and climate adaptation during an unusually warm week earlier in the year. The increasing recognition that status quo policies and actions are not satisfactory to address the global crisis of a warming planet makes it all the more important that professional students reflect on the ethical and moral imperative of cooling down a warming planet.
You might still be asking: How does this week’s disruptive weather event relate to the MPS course in Ethics? My reflection on this question consists of three points.
First, the Ethics course invites students to move beyond a rules-based or legalistic framework approach to what is ethically necessary in professional life. While knowing professional codes of conduct and policies that govern particular communities of practice is important, simple compliance with prescribed requirements is not enough to address threats to the common good. I teach the core ethics course in MPS Urban & Regional Planning and students meaningfully engage with the American Institute of Certified Planners Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. But the discussions, the assignments, and the applications move well beyond the text of the professional code to a deeper consideration of how ethical skills and habits depend on more than following external rules. Ethics is more than how we behave at work and includes the ways that we form personal values that guide our actions in the world.
Second, the MPS course in ethics invites students to challenge their preconceptions and existing worldviews by adopting the perspectives of others. As a Jesuit institution, Georgetown invites students to consider the ethical significance of a wide range of topics from the view of marginalized persons and communities. Considering the ethical implications of real-world events like this week’s spike in air pollution from the viewpoint of the most socially, economically, and politically disempowered is a primary orientation of Jesuit education, which is emphasized in the religious order’s Universal Apostolic Preferences that include “Walking with the Excluded” and “Caring for Our Common Home.” Fr. Daniel Hendrickson, S.J., in his recent book “Jesuit Higher Education in a Secular Age” captures the “solidarity” commitment in Jesuit schools and argues that students need to develop an awareness of others that leads to personalized commitments to realizing social change.
Third, the class in ethics reveals that all professional disciplines have a common stake in universal challenges. This invites greater interdisciplinarity and cross-silo thinking about how the various professional communities can assist one another in addressing global problems. Students can leave the class appreciating their common interests with related and allied disciplines. For instance, Georgetown recently announced that its newly built downtown residential building at 55 H St. NW achieved LEED Platinum from the U.S. Green Building Council. Achieving the highest possible LEED certification reflects the University’s priority of environmental sustainability in its strategy and operations. This achievement also reflects a very real-world example of how professionals from various disciplines had to come together in order to make this project a reality. The journey toward a more just and healthy climate future will require that students trained in the knowledge and skills of particular professional industries actively seek out collaborations with others.
Forming professional students in ethical thinking and practice is one of the many ways that SCS lives out the Spirit of Georgetown and contributes to a healthier and more just world.