Kennedy, Donald. (1997). Academic Duty. Reviewed by Courtney Welch, Texas Woman's University

Kennedy, Donald. (1997). Academic Duty. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. Pp. 310 $29.95 (Cloth)         ISBN 0674002237 Reviewed by Courtney Welch Texas Woman's University April 20, 2001         In the 21st century, faculty and administrators in institutions of higher education are often confronted with complex situations that could lead them down the road of academic misconduct. As the Bing Professor of Environmental Sciences and the President Emeritus of Stanford University, Donald Kennedy has significant experience in the teaching and administrative world of a research university. Because of this experience he is no stranger to the institutional struggle between teaching and research as well as the complicated financial concerns between profit-making ventures and pure academic research.         His book Academic Duty contains intensely personal insights and reflections that illuminate and identify the responsibilities that faculty and administrators need to strive toward in order to serve their university and students. Kennedy's book emerged as the product of a challenging and productive seminar that focused on "shaping" Stanford graduate students for various academic careers. "I have tried," he writes, "to engage future faculty members with a vision of academic duty that includes the responsibilities to put students first and to restore the values of institutional commitment and loyalty" (p. vii). Kennedy asserted that faculty and administrators in higher education must strive toward these duties in order to maintain an ethical and educational balance of research, peer review, grants, teaching, and publication. Kennedy claimed that "within the university itself, administrative responsibility is a key ingredient in the design of the institution's objectives." (p. 279)         He maintained that university faculty should not only concentrate on publishing and research but "advance the capacities and potentialities of the next generation" through effective teaching and mentoring (p. 22). According to Kennedy, the edification as well as the education of students should be "at the very core of the university's mission and the faculty's academic duty." (p. 59) In his fourth chapter, entitled To Mentor, Kennedy maintained that mentoring is not just a statistical part of a faculty teaching load but an ethical duty of the highest order. He also claimed that the current climate of poor graduate training, pertaining to the many temptations within the academic arena, could be the deep- rooted cause of the continual ethical problems among university faculty.         Kennedy is quick to qualify that academic duty, if conducted correctly, would not only be complimentary but supportive of academic freedom. He maintained that in a democratic society "liberty and duty, freedom and responsibility" are the opposite sides of the same coin (p. 2). Kennedy writes not as an outsider chastising academia, but as one who appreciates and acknowledges the distinct culture and problems of working in an academic climate. The strongest and most troubling elements of Kennedy's work is the exploration of misconduct among university researchers, the misleading direction of graduate advisors, and the unethical grant-seeking activity among university professors in the culture of a research university. Kennedy expertly reconstructed informative and enlightening case studies and anecdotes that illustrated the ethical challenges and temptations that exist in higher education.         The three most pivotal and interesting chapters in Kennedy's work are those entitled "To Teach" (Chapter 3), "To Publish" (Chapter 7), and "To Tell the Truth" (Chapter 8). Within these chapters, Kennedy exposes the outrageous and subtle ways that research faculty and university administrators bend their ethics to the breaking point. Kennedy asserted that most professors are not prepared for the teaching requirements or the intense pressure of authorship at a research university. He reminded those working in an academic culture that ethical dilemmas are not limited to plagiarizing or falsifying research, but can also pertain to a professor requiring his students to buy the book he authored in order to receive more royalties. According to Kennedy, both situations are considered violations of "academic duty." Kennedy staggered this reviewer by claiming that "more than 75 percent of all papers are never cited . . . and even in certain fields the percentage of noncitation is even higher." (p. 193) His implication for the necessity of teaching ethics, especially in terms of research and publishing, to faculty and administrators in higher education is clearly conveyed and should seriously be considered.         Kennedy's work is spellbinding, enlightening, and highly readable. Academic Duty has only one limitation in that it only investigated ethical issues at a research university. Within his endnotes, Kennedy provided a rich and dazzling list of resources that not only supported his thesis but also encouraged educational researchers to investigate the role of academic duty within theological seminaries, liberal arts colleges, and community colleges. Kennedy, in an effort to expose the research university culture, writes from both his positive and negative experiences in higher education to encourage a stronger sense of duty within this culture. He maintained that for a true cultural change to occur, institutions of higher education must strengthen their mission and duty to the development of the next generation. Ultimately, Kennedy concluded that, "the difficulty is that they (research institutions) are both successful and prestigious, and they lack the natural appetite for renovation and reform that characterizes the striving, transforming institutions. But unless they change, little else will." (p. 287)         Kennedy has identified many ethical problems within the research university and has "thrown down the gauntlet." Let us hope that faculty and administrators will be encouraged by this challenge. On a personal note, this reviewer recommends that this book should be required reading for all faculty and administrators within their first year of employment. Overall, this reviewer contends that Donald Kennedy has made a valuable contribution to the growing literature on ethics and duty among those who work, research, and teach in higher education. About the Reviewer Courtney Welch is a graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas and is currently an adjunct professor in the history department at Texas Woman's University in Denton, Texas and a history instructor at Collin County Community College in Plano, Texas. She is pursuing a doctorate in higher education administration at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Her research interests include higher education law, student development, and curriculum development.