Conflicts of Interest Genuine conflicts of interest between graduate students and faculty members can arise in a variety of ways. We have already alluded to the problems that can occur when the research of a graduate student is inadequately acknowledged by faculty either by failure to footnote properly or to give co-authorship credit. But another set of professional interpersonal relationships must be handled with great care if the integrity of graduate study is to be preserved. As continuing formal education becomes more common and as academics begin to become involved in the world of business, the possibility of a business relationship between student and teacher becomes greater. All of us are familiar with the kind of conflict of interest that may arise through nepotism, that is, when a person serves in an administrative or supervisory relationship to those who are related to him or her by blood or marriage.
Most universities have rules which try to regulate professional relationships in such cases.
Many faculty members are reluctant to have their own sons, daughters, or spouses take their courses for credit on the grounds that such students may be perceived by others to have an unfair advantage. A business relationship including a consulting one must evoke the same kind of caution. Similarly, a student should not date an instructor while the student is enrolled in the instructor s course. If such a relationship should develop after a professional one has been established, the student should expect the instructor to remove himself or herself from the professional role. Such a relationship, whether between a graduate student and a faculty member or between a graduate student acting as an associate instructor and an undergraduate, constitutes a potential conflict of interest, especially as perceived by other students and faculty members, and therefore, should be scrupulously avoided.