Ethical Epitaphs: Extended Explorations of Excellence

One of my favorite things to do at workshops on teaching or ethics (or both) is to ask attendees to write their "ethical epitaph." Some people don't like the idea of the death stuff, so sometimes I change the exercise to writing a lifetime achievement award rather than a tombstone engraving. But there's no alliteration there, so I like ethical epitaph better! The purpose of this exercise is to encourage people to think more broadly and more positively about their life's work.

Summing up an anticipated lifetime of values, virtues, and behaviors allows us to gain some perspective. And using an ethical, rather than a professional, context allows for a wider perspective. For example, Lloyd Blankfein—the chair of Goldman Sachs—may feel pretty good in the short term about selling a product he knew would be bad for his customers. He might even feel professionally fulfilled by making so much money—even at the expense of others. However, such behavior may not be what he'd choose to be remembered for in terms of ethical values. (This is pure speculation, of course; I really can't speak for him.)

Think for a minute about possible ethical epitaphs for some well-known people. What will Bernie Madoff's ethical epitaph be? "I bilked Elie Wiesel's Foundation For Humanity out of $37 million." Which would you rather have, this one of Madoff's or Wiesel's own epitaph? Who do you think will have a better ethical epitaph, Kenneth Lay, former chairman of Enron, or Sherron Watkins, the person who blew the whistle? It may be that whistle blowers, like Watkins or Jeffrey Wigand (played by Russell Crowe in The Insider) have a tough time during their lives but are ensured a place in heaven—or at least a good epitaph.

The ethical epitaph is a way to explore more positive aspects of one's professional identity. Can you think of any professional, for example, who would want this on their gravestone?: "Followed all the rules and never got sued." Didn't think so. I ask professionals to think of what they wrote on their graduate school applications—about helping people, changing the world, doing good work, etc. When I work with professors and other teachers, they never write the following epitaphs:

• "She turned in all her grades on time."
• "He berated his students until they published with him."
• "He treated all his students with equal contempt."
• "She didn't let teaching get in the way of getting her research done."

Rather, people write epitaphs like, "Cared about her students," or "Challenged and supported his students regardless of their ability." Of course, the one I share is from an old New Yorker cartoon which adorns many professors' office doors: "Published, but perished anyway."

I got a glimpse of the potential epitaphs of some of my own graduate professors last weekend when I attended a party—a reunion of sorts—with seven of my graduate school colleagues whom I hadn't seen in 25-30 years. Much of the conversation around the table at my friend Joe's house was about our professors—the good and the bad. I noticed that the stories we shared were not about the information or skills we had learned. Nobody said, for example, "Wow, remember how that professor taught analysis of variance! Masterful!!" Rather, with the perspective of 30 years the stories were all about how our professors treated us—how much respect they showed. Several of us talked about my advisor, who understood where we were in our professional development, helped lots of us graduate rather than stagnate, and expressed his concern for us in many ways. We also had some things to say about professors who ignored us, berated us, keeping us in graduate school until they didn't need our help any more, and in other ways made it clear that we were second-class human beings.

The lessons I learned in graduate school about how to be respectful of students were not learned by memorizing an ethics code or a list of policies. The lessons came in the form of interactions with professors who practiced what they preached.

I leave you with three questions to ponder:

(1) Think of your favorite or most influential professor: What would their ethical epitaph be? (2) What would you like on your professional or ethical epitaph? (3)
What do you think other people would say your epitaph would be?

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Mitch Handelsman is a professor of psychology at the University of Colorado Denver and the co-author (with Sharon Anderson) of Ethics for Psychotherapists and Counselors: A Proactive Approach (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).