Minutes recorded by:
Vera Szanya, Librarian and Adviser, University of Veszprem, Veszprem,
Hungary, Fulbright Advising Center, anyatibo@vek.uranus.vein.hu
Agnes Vajda, Educational Adviser, Fulbright Advising Center, Budapest,
Hungary, fulbright@fki.huninet.hu
Chair: Lynne Lerner, Educational Adviser, Netherlands-America Fulbright Commission, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Moderator: Linda Callihan, Assoc. Director, Field Service, NAFSA, Washington DC
Group-session Leaders:
Dr. Marti Thomson, Director and REAC, East Asia, MACEE Fulbright Commission, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Rosemarie Arens, REAC for South America ,Fulbright Commission, Lima, Peru
Lynne Lerner welcomed the participants and introduced the topics of this session. This interactive round-table discussion was on the NAFSA Code of Ethics as a guideline (The Code was freely accessible for the participants.)
The description of the Code: The NAFSA Ethics Program: Ethical Practice in International Educational Exchange. - 1992. - 32 p.)
Linda Callihan emphasized that the main purpose of the Code, was to define and maintain standards in educational advising while focusing on responsibility and the local circumstances and needs of the country.
What does ethics mean?
- Personal, individual responsibility in advising, which is a new profession without a past in most of the less-developed regions.
There have been efforts on the part of a NAFSA group in 1989, when the first Code was published to provide guidelines for educational advising in order to increase professional recognition. The code points out a direction - nations can make changes since
no strict code is valid worldwide.
Prepared study cases were disseminated among the participants, initiating discussion, which took place in two groups lead by the group leaders and lasting about 20 minutes.
The group which was headed by Marti Thomson focused on ethics and fees. Questions:
- Pay or not to pay for service?
- Is it ethical to charge?
- Is it ethical to charge for some cases?
- For NAFSA representatives, charging is unavoidable.
Answers:
The reality is that there must be a charge for every service since there are problems in maintaining offices and survival is a vital problem.
Questions:
- Does charging change the relationship to students or clients?
- Does it increase the level of service?
- Does it mean a demand for service on a higher level?
Answers:
- Charging is all right in the name of an institution.
- It changes the way the students look at the service, if they must pay for it.
- Individual work ought to be compensated. If certain services are paid for, the product will be better.
Question:
- Can everyone get the same information if it they pay for it?
- How can equality be assured.
- Can it be assured at all?
Answer:
- In Sweden, advising service costs $85. Conclusion: clients appreciate the service more if they must pay for it.
- M. Thomson: Charging for services is a really uncomfortable question, but must be solved - it is a cardinal task for the next 5 years. The advisers are professionals, why not pay for their services?! If the quality of the service is on a high level and
provides access to many facilities, equipment, information carriers, charging cannot be a question of ethics.
Naturally, the expectation of service is higher and the responsibility is greater in the case of paid service, which can not be generalized by rules. Every culture, situation is different and the adviser must be able to solve the problem or find the right
solution for it. NAFSA Code shows how they may be done.
The following questions were about the practical way to charge, what to charge for, and how much to charge?
- Discrimination - how to avoid it?
High technology often determines the situation: the use of CD-ROM, video, e-mail, fax, etc. are easier to charge for. Perhaps it is not possible to charge for information itself, but the service and the access to information must be on a fee basis.
While discussing these important questions, the problems of recruitment, ranking and discrimination were mentioned as hard to avoid and hard to evaluate.
At any rate, the advisers carry a large responsibility and the reputation of their service depends particularly on the advisers personality and knowledge.
Rosemarie Arens from Fulbright, Peru lead the discussion on Case 2. The group dealt with the problem of 'Rankings'. The issues around which the discussion centered were stated as follows:
- Employers tend to look for graduates of the top 20 U.S. universities only - the ones which they have heard of.
- Values should be examined since they are likely to be different for the student/ advisor/employer. This difference in values might easily lead to making different choices as well.
- Consideration should be given to the question of in what way (time or quality?) the graduate program offered is shortened?' Should we regard it as an advantage or disadvantage?
Suggestions from advisors participating in the group discussion:
(Advisor from Turkey:) our task is to provide the individual with an objective list/ranking.
(Advisor from Israel:) the important thing is what the student wants. The whole perspective is to be taken into consideration, not any one given list.
(Advisor from Sweden:) the student interested in a certain program should contact an individual who has studied there previously. Also, university catalogs could serve as good sources of information about professors, publications, courses etc.
(Advisor from Israel:) look internally and not externally! Look for the professional match!
Summary:
The student is free, the advisor should provide him/her with objective and sufficient information. Ranking is for "lazy" students who do not make the effort to do the research.
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