Agnes Scott president visits campus

Davidson alumna and current President of Agnes Scott College Elizabeth Kiss '83 presented this semester's Chidsey Leadership Lecture last Wednesday, where she observed that leading with honor and integrity is about keeping organizations focused on things of enduring value rather than on things of the moment.

Reflecting on the 100-year celebration of Davidson's Honor Code, Kiss noted, "If you think about it, 100 years of energetic nurture of a culture of honor and integrity – that is a rare and precious thing, shared by just a baker's dozen of colleges and universities."

Yet Kiss has observed widespread negative reaction and hesitancy toward honor codes, which has led her to pose the question, "Why do honor codes and other efforts to champion academic integrity matter?"

"What, after all, is the point of teaching, learning and research? It is the growth of knowledge, the cultivation of skills of thinking, analysis, interpretation and argument – the pursuit, ultimately, of wisdom and truth," Kiss continued.

"Cheating corrupts all of these things–corrupts the process of learning by faking knowledge, corrupts the process of teaching by making fair assessment and feedback impossible and corrupts the process of scholarship and the acquisition of critical skills in ways that are always bad and can be very dangerous."

Kiss regards academic integrity as "a magical key" that can open doors to "the labyrinth and eventually the inner sanctum—the very heart of what we're about."

The second experience that influenced Kiss's view of honor codes occurred when she was a high school senior interviewing for the Stuart Scholarship at Davidson, named in honor of Edward Stuart '59. Kiss remembered hearing Edward's brother read a letter that he had written while traveling to India before his death.

"In that letter Edward drew a distinction…between shiny things and shining things," Kiss said. "Shiny things reflect the light in their immediate vicinity. They have a momentary and often ephemeral sparkle. Whereas, shining things radiate an enduring light.

"While we pursue many shiny things, including grades, awards, salary increases, new outfits, gadgets, if you take a shiny thing out of its immediate context, it loses its sparkle," she continued. "The key is not to reject the pursuit of shiny things entirely…but the key is to understand the difference between shiny and shining things, which is to say to keep the ephemeral value of shiny things in perspective and to try to always keep the quest for shining things in your sight."

"Honor codes matter because teaching, learning and scholarship matter," she continued. "They are shining things. A thoughtful focus on honor and integrity forces us to ask deeper, tougher questions about the purpose of education, about pedagogy, about the rewards and incentives structures we have created in the imperfect institutions for the pursuit of teaching, learning and research that we call colleges and universities. If we grasp the key we will find ourselves asking the question, so what are we really up to? What's the point of this enterprise? It will force us to lead more examined lives."

Kiss offered several lessons for leading with integrity and honor, based on both her own experiences and her observations of successful leaders. First, "develop a code and use it," she said. "You don't want to be searching for your core values when a crisis hits. Articulate values because by doing so you can help guide action and shape culture.

"A second leadership lesson is to engage people in the process," she continued. "You come up with more wisdom, more insight in the end.

"The third leadership lesson is one of the hardest: Don't get in your own way. It's amazing what can get done if you don't care who gets the credit and what you can make unravel if you let ambition or pride, those quintessentially shiny things, get in the way."

These lessons are especially important because, "for better and for worse, leaders are culture shapers," she said. "Whether you're president of a student organization, teacher in a classroom, chair of a department, or running a large corporation or non-profit, you have a chance everyday to shape that organization's culture.

"One of the challenges of leadership is to sort through what can be a bewildering array of issues, factors, and stakeholders – of shiny and shining things – and make the decisions you need to make," she said. "Leading with honor and integrity is fundamentally about trying…to keep your mind focused on the shining things – things of enduring value for your group or organization."

Kiss offered several important statistics reported by the Josephson Institute's 2008 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, which was based on anonymous responses from thousands of high school students.

The survey found that 64 percent of the students reported they had cheated in the last year, with 38 percent reporting that they had cheated more than twice. Thirty percent reported that they had stolen from a store in the past year. Ninety-three percent reported that they were satisfied with their personal ethics and character. Seventy-seven percent agreed with the statement, "When it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know." Fifty-one percent of survey respondents under 17 agreed with the statement, "Lying and cheating are necessary to succeed in life."

Kiss concluded that these statistics point toward society's concentration on shiny rather than shining things. She emphasized the importance of debates centering on what makes for a decent society, or a life-well-lived.

"I believe that most people want to have a sense of moral purpose in their lives – that, in fact, they are energized by it if they feel like they are part of something larger than themselves," Kiss said. "I think we need to model a commitment to these values, but we also need to be more engaged in a national conversation about, if you will, the meaning of life. What is a successful life?"