Some of the greatest ethical dilemmas facing higher education today involve the "corporatization" of universities, in the view of Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate.
As a result of the growing ties between universities and businesses, Mr. Nader believes, corporate values are threatening to run roughshod over the "non-mercantile" values of the academy.
"The university has long since sold its soul," Mr. Nader said at a national conference here on ethical problems confronting higher education. "It's just selling its soul now in more ways, for a higher price."
Mr. Nader said he was concerned that technology-transfer and licensing arrangements between colleges and corporations were making scientists less free to discuss their findings. Equally troubling, he said, is the number of researchers who are reluctant to divulge details about their financial arrangements with business and industry.
"How compatible is academic freedom in a university with trade secrecy and proprietary information?" he asked.
Universities must consider the extent to which the small amount of corporate dollars for research and development is driving the way the larger pot of public funds for research and development is used--without benefits to the taxpayers, he said.
The "corporatization" of universities is further illustrated, he said, by the practice of presidents' serving on corporate boards and of professors' acting as consultants to companies.
Mr. Nader was among the speakers at a conference at Wayne State University on "Ethics and the University."
About 170 people attended the meeting, which was the first sponsored by the university's new Center for Academic Ethics. Created in 1989, it is believed to be the first center specializing in the study of ethical problems that arise in higher education.
Besides discussing the ethical dilemmas posed by ties between higher education and business, participants at the conference also considered the ethical duties of professors and the role of the university in shaping character.
Mr. Nader argued for fuller disclosure of ties between universities and companies.
In response to Mr. Nader's critique, Jesse Vivian, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at Wayne State University, said compromises were made in the developing relationship between business and higher education. But he said with federal funds drying up as a result of the budget deficit, and with the looming prospect of an economic recession, universities will have to look elsewhere for dollars to continue their research.
In this context, Mr. Vivian said, "the evil is not industry."
"We know what they're going to do. The evil is ourselves. The issue is what will we do, what limits will we set on ourselves."
Michael Davis, an associate professor of philosophy at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said Mr. Nader was oversimplifying his case. University researchers "get into bed" with industry for some "understandable," pragmatic reasons, said Mr. Davis, who is also a senior research associate at the Institute's Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions.
For instance, Mr. Davis said, companies are looking for new technology without having to wait for it to appear in research journals. Meanwhile, universities are looking to place their graduate students and to gain access to new equipment that they might otherwise be unable to afford.
Robert M. Rosenzweig, president of the Association of American Universities, said the possibility that ties between business and higher education could result in a lack of openness about research was something that "needs to be guarded against." But, he said, universities must try to deal with the problem and not simply cut off ties with business.
"Universities have an obligation to get the fruits of their work out into public use," Mr. Rosenzweig said in an interview. "The way you do that in this country is through industry. It raises problems, of which the temptation to withhold information is one."
One solution, he said, is for institutions to refuse to accept agreements with companies that restrict scientific communications. Universities also must work with faculty members to "reinforce the ethic of openness," he said, adding that most institutions had come up with policies about such issues.
Aside from ethical questions about ties between business and higher education, participants at the conference debated how to define and monitor the ethical responsibilities of professors.
Steven M. Cahn, provost of the Graduate School of the City University of New York, said professors across the academy had long ignored their own conduct as a subject of scrutiny. Mr. Cahn has written a book on ethics in academe and is the editor of a new collection of essays on the subject called Morality, Responsibility, and the University: Studies in Academic Ethics, to be published January by Temple University Press.
"Professors can frustrate students, mislead them, miseducate them, destroy their will," he said. "Professors can be helpful in forwarding the careers of other scholars or, through malice or neglect, can cause careers to be derailed."
Professors do "not like to be reminded of their potential for causing harm to others," Mr. Cahn said, because they are "not accustomed to contraints."
Ernst Benjamin, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, disagreed that little attention had been paid to the responsibilities of professors. He pointed to repeated statements on ethics and conflicts of interest that have been issued by the A.A.U.P. and by professional associations.
Asked how departments should deal with situations of academic malfeasance, Mr. Benjamin answered, "Carefully--not as in politically, but as in properly." He said that rewards could be withheld from professors who are lax in meeting their responsibilities.
"Greater sanctions are more complicated," said Mr. Benjamin. "Ultimately, if people don't do their jobs, they ought to pay the penalty of not doing their jobs."
"The solution to academic malfeasance is good academic policies, soundly administered."