the ethicist

Author: Amanda Greene

Middlebury students have a tendency to overload their schedules. Our date books double as color-schemed art projects and by Sunday evening our dorms look as if they've been swept by a hurricane. In a climate where kids are penciling in phone calls home and time to sleep, it's inevitable that scheduling conflicts often arise. Three students trying to coordinate times to meet to plan an outline to lead a psych discussion is like trying to arrange a family reunion for 50 people. So what happens when someone can't meet? What excuses are legitimate and when do students skip out on things they should be doing because they are inconsiderate? When is it OK to obtain a dean's excuse and what circumstances permit a student to ask professors for alternate exam times?

Group meetings, because they pertain to a specific project and do not span the length of the semester, are particularly hard to plan. Any student who has a long-term commitment to a sports practice, a job or a club should not be expected to miss his or her activities if they are at a conflicting time. That said, if a student is involved in an array of activities and knows that it would be acceptable to miss a meeting or a practice and realizes that it's important to work on the group project, then it's helpful for him to do so. Here, the planning depends on the student's discretion.

Exams and dean's excuses have much more rigid guidelines. An exam, as a one-time event that is announced and scheduled well in advance, is not something that should be skipped for weekly engagements. Students should arrange their schedules around exam times. Of course, bigger sporting events and student performances are an exception to this as the student's attendance at these extracurriculars is essential and is something the individual has committed an enormous amount of time to. Students should not be penalized for unavoidable time conflicts.

Students, however, cannot ask for alternate exam time for the sake of convenience or because they didn't allot their time effectively and would like to study more. It's OK to ask to move exams around if a student had a confluence of exams and papers that produces a next to impossible, superman-like workload. As a general rule, students should be cognizant of the needs of their peers and their professors, but should be aware that the system is flexible if extenuating circumstances present themselves.

And now for this week's question:

Q: The library has lots of movies that are on reserve and can only be viewed in the library. Sometimes I want to watch a movie in my dorm room, so I check it out, hide the case somewhere in the library and sneak the DVD out in my backpack. I reason that my actions are ethical because anyone who wanted to watch the film I am watching in my room wouldn't be able to watch if even I were watching it in the library. Is my behavior unethical?

- Film-Filcher

A: While I admire the complexity of your reasoning, I cannot condone your behavior. Although it is tempting to take materials out of the library because you have figured out a way to not set off the sensor, such behavior is unethical because it violates library policy. By keeping DVDs within the library the staff ensures that they can always be located and that they do not get scratched by "traveling" next to your textbooks, binders and iPod.

Want to consult the ethicist? Send submissions to amgreene@middlebury.edu.