Ethics and Continuing Professional Education: Today's Challenges, Tomorrow's Solutions

Today more than ever continuing professional education (CPE) is being called upon to meet the demands of a changing workplace. Whether we are providing CPE for nurses or purchasing agents, literacy teachers or engineers, pilots or computer technicians, changing forces dictate that we look at our own practice of educational development and delivery It is also within this context that we begin to realize that these issues and challenges bring with them ethical problems and dilemmas for us to solve. In collecting data for a current research project, I recently had the opportunity to listen to continuing professional educators discuss their current ethical dilemmas. Some of these dilemmas are ongoing as we deal with diverse populations, face administrative challenges and strike a balance between economic viability and loyalty to the adult learner. In the mid-1980s, adult educators held frequent conversations about ethics, both in literature and at conferences. These conversations are still pertinent, but perhaps not as prolific as they should be today considering our new challenges. Conversations with continuing professional educators reveal an increased concern about competition among CPE vendors and increased demands from organizations and institutions to incorporate technology and distance learning in their delivery systems, sometimes without increased support and funding. As many observe, the climate is changing. Education is now more consumer based, and the consumer demands it operate both as a business and an academic endeavor producing many conflicts of interest. The way technology is changing our CPE delivery raises a new set of questions regarding learner accountability, faculty contact hours and intellectual property rights. We rarely have such conversations today, however, and the topic of ethics is frequently missing from our daily discourse. We appear consumed with our administrative functions and responsibilities to provide services and are isolated in our endeavors and face our ethical issues without much support and acknowledgment. If CPE is to make a difference in the 21st century and meet the challenges ahead, then we need to move ethics and its place in our professional lives to the forefront. How do we do this and why is it so important? Renewing the Ethics Discourse First, we must renew the conversations and daily dialogue about the ethical dimensions of our CPE practice. Ethics is not a "special topic" discussed only in times of professional crises or after the barn door has been closed behind the horse. Whether we are well read in our profession or are well versed in listening to our colleagues' issues and concerns, I believe we need to take stock of what is around us and understand the basis for ethical issues. This ethical sensitivity, which views issues beyond a management problem or administrative perspective, provides us with heightened awareness. Understanding issues from an ethical perspective and then applying ethical decision making strategies can be helpful in our professional roles and reduce our own tension and stress in working out complicated issues. How do we know if a problem has an ethical dimension? I think most of us begin with our feelings, with how comfortable we are. In fact, Zinn recommends we ask ourselves, "Do I have a gut feeling that something is not quite `right' about this?" (1993, p. 8). Answering Zinn's question might not be all that hard for us, since most of us can tell when we are uncomfortable in our practice. It is the next step that may challenge us. Opening the dialogue among professional practitioners also provides opportunities to explore those issues that make us uncomfortable and share strategies for coping with them. Drawing from Our Resources Continuing professional education can also draw on the literature of adult educators from the past 20 years. During this time, we have developed rich resources from research and practice complete with illustrations of real life stories and how practitioners have coped with their ethical dilemmas. …