The basic concept is that employees are expected to give their full measure of time, talent, and loyalty to the College. Any activity or work pattern that adversely affects College employees or employment, in terms of productivity, dedication, or improper influence, is in conflict with an employee's basic obligation. The policy is directed toward such potential conflict situations as engaging in private business during working hours, outside consulting, using College resources for private purposes, accepting gifts from vendors who do business with the College, and recruiting or advertising on campus. 3.0 Academic Freedom Ricks College has a well-defined Academic Freedom policy and is committed to the free pursuit and dissemination of knowledge consistent with our mission statement. The policy recognizes the distinctive nature of the College in that faculty and students pursue academic knowledge in light of the restored gospel as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Individual freedom lies at the core of both religious and academic life.
Freedom of thought, belief, inquiry, and expression are no less crucial to the sacred than to the secular quest for truth. Ricks embraces individual academic freedom of study, inquiry, and debate conditioned and balanced by its institutional freedom and obligation to pursue its religious mission. Because the gospel encompasses all truth and affirms the full range of human understanding, the scope of integration for LDS scholars is as wide as truth itself. At Ricks individual academic freedom is based not only on a belief in the value of free inquiry, but also on the gospel principle that humans are moral agents who should seek knowledge in the sacred as well as in the secular, by the heart and spirit as well as by the mind, and through continuing revelation as well as in the written word of God. The faculty is entrusted with broad individual academic freedom to pursue truth according to the methodologies and assumptions that characterize scholarship in various disciplines.