Yesterday, I sat through a 3 hour workshop run by "college counsel" for new faculty called "legal issues." I want to be clear that this was "legal issues," not "moral issues." And let me also admit that the summary below of course loses a lot of the nuance of the three hour session and leaves a couple of the topics completely untouched.
But here's my summary: sure, we're a religiously affiliated school, but legally, you can sleep with anyone you want, as long as you don't have sex with anyone over whom you have direct power nor they over you. But NEVER, I repeat NEVER EVER, violate copyright law or student confidentiality. Perhaps we need to sort out our priorities.
And there's this odd edge, right, one that I've heard about from several theology folks around here, of wanting new faculty not to feel as though the religious commitments of the school are a big deal. And of course, there is a tension here. A colleague of mine told me a story about how, at her new faculty orientation session on the "ministry and mission" of the school, the veteran faculty members leading her group's breakout session basically told them that they should nod and give lip service to the mission-talk when administration or friars asked, but then ignore it for the rest of their professional lives. She just asked the question "But what about those of us who came here because we want to give our lives to that mission?" Apparently, they didn't have much response. They weren't sure she was serious.
2 comments:
Sorta reminds me of my "Preventing Ministerial Sexual Misconduct" requirement in Divinity School. A twelve-week required course for the M.Div. that basically boiled down to: "if any of you ever take sexual advantage of one of your parishoners; their lawyers better not come after us, because we told you not to."
Sigh.
Yes; I remember a similar seminary experience. An 8-hour day that boiled down to "TRY not to have sex with your parishioners."
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