Faculty Misconduct in Collegiate Teaching

The authors address issues of impropriety and misconduct in the teaching role at the post-secondary level. They define and examine norms of teaching behaviour, focusing on four disciplines and exploring how individual, disciplinary and institutional differences influence professorial behaviour. In contrast to the more explicitly understood and enforced rules of conduct in research, the authors find that teaching norms are informally defined and observed. They argue that a formal code of ethics for undergraduate teaching would serve the dual purpose of improving undergraduate education and elevating the status of college teaching.