The American Scene; Professional Integrity

Good morning for the American scene. At the core of each society are its people. It is the integrity or the lack of integrity of these people that becomes the integrity of the entire society. If we're keen we may be able to observe integrity not only in the personal lives of these people but also in their business lives, whether their profession be that of a doctor or a civic official, a taxi driver, a television performer or a sales lady. This morning we proposed to consider professional and by definition personal integrity. Our guests, although seemingly from widely separated fields, in pre -broadcast discussion found that their opinions were surprisingly similar. Both of our guests this week are from the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Reverend William D. Fannen is Institute Chaplain and Mr. Ralph V. Sterling is executive director of development and public relations. Chaplain Fannen may I ask you for a concise preliminary definition in terms of our discussion today what is professional integrity?

I think professional integrity, as it's commonly understood, would be that standard which would be taken as a minimum by the majority of the people in a particular field. However, even though there may be a broad definition within a given profession, the probability is that this is always going to be subject to individual interpretation. So, in the final analysis, it may be that professional integrity is personal integrity applied within a specific area. Mr. Sterling, would you agree with this? I would agree with that very much. We might put it on the basis of pretty much the goal and rule. I try to look at it that what would I do if I were on the other side of the fence? I think a wise father I knew solved the problem pretty well when he had two sons. He would always let one of them cut the piece of pie and the other one have the first choice. I think that is a good way to solve it. Let me ask you if we can agree,

basically, on this definition that professional integrity is only a part of one's personal integrity. I applied to a specific situation. Right. A specific situation. I'll go along with that. What do you think, Mr. Sterling, is the accepted standard or level of professional integrity that we find about us today? Well, I get concerned. I do not feel the accepted standard as nearly as high as we feel it should be or as it originally had started out to be. There are a lot of people who feel that there is a moral decadence that has set in in the United States. Briefly, let's look at a few areas. Take juvenile delinquency, for example. It is estimated that at the rate juvenile delinquency has been increasing, that in the next ten years, now get this, one out of every five young men, seventeen years of age or younger, will have a police criminal record. The Navy is greatly concerned about this because they already are rejecting about 42

percent of all applicants, and if this will progress for the next ten years, they will be rejecting greater than 60 percent, and then of the 40 percent where they do make their selection, they're bound to have felt this influence of juvenile delinquency. In New York City, it's estimated that the juvenile delinquencies are doubling every five years. So, if you're taking it the whole way down to the juvenile ages, it does take it out of the context of professional integrity somewhat, and it would be necessary for an extension in age of the conditions that would exist in the juvenile age groupings into the professional period to make this applied directly. Do you think there is any parallel between the increase of juvenile delinquency and an increasing decadence on the professional level? Well, I think there is because where do

children get their guidance if they're getting much? Where do they get their influence? They get it don't they from their parents, from the schools, from the churches. I'm wondering if all three of those primary influencing areas haven't failed in their big problem. Of course, I frequently feel that there are not many juvenile delinquents among children. It's mostly a delinquent parents. What you're seeing then in essence is that as far as professional integrity is concerned, it is something which is already in the individual before he has decided upon the profession he will engage upon. I think that's a very good point. For you to reach the professional level. Yes. When we talk about juvenile delinquency, I think we do it almost rather glibly. These days, it's a phrase that we hear commonly. I think perhaps we frequently don't stop to think what this really means, that this problem is going down to a very basic core problem within the family

structure, if you will, today. I know, Chaplain Fauna, when we were talking earlier, some of the beliefs or lack of beliefs, which people have by the time they reach the age of 17, 18, or 20, is a pretty astounding thing. We run into this all the time in the campus ministry. It's something which gives the campus ministry its meaning as a matter of fact. But I don't think we have gone quite far enough yet in the professional levels. I think we ought to explore this a little bit further before we move on into something else, because we start off with the idea of professional integrity. And I think we do this for a very subtle reason. It is within the professions that we're primarily conscious of integrity. And we can easily jump back from this point and say that it's in the juvenile period that integrity has its beginnings if it isn't before that. But yet, the reason

we would be discussing it and the reason it would be discussed in most homes that would bring up the subject would be the negative influence, which has come to bear in the popular press and so on as a result of violations of integrity by those who are already professionals. Do you think we can see integrity as a positive force? Well, integrity is a positive thing. Can it be viewed as such? Can we look at a man and say he has integrity? It's easy to look and say he does not if he's proven this. Well, you cannot say that by looking at a man he has integrity. Integrity is seen by the product of his action. It is the action which enables another person to determine whether he is acting on the basis of integrity. But we tend to allow this particular idea to rise in our minds and to become a subject of discussion when rejections of integrity have come to the fore. What would bring this to the fore would be primarily

the lack of integrity where we think it ought to be rather than the presence of integrity where we commonly accept it. There are thousands upon thousands of honest policemen, for example, but these people are largely forgotten in the popular press. There are a few who talk about them, but this isn't what sells newspapers. What you say is very true. I just read an article by Dr. Norman Vincent Peel, a noted minister in New York City, who stated that it's the exceptional that makes news that there are far more honest people, and this I believe, than there are those who are dishonest. But it's when somebody who does something that's different, who is a man who's been honest, who embezzles money, or a police officer who turns crooked, or a government official who has squandered wasted money. That's what makes news because it is the exceptional. Or the doctor who happens to commit a murder or a clergyman who happens to do something that he ought not to do. These are the things

which are brought to the fore. And the millions, perhaps, of people who do abide by high standards of conduct, which embody integrity within the individual. These individuals are completely forgotten. Chaplain, do you think that many people are inclined to respond in terms of what we expect them to do, that if we really act like a man is honest, and expect him to conduct himself within integrity, then generally he will follow that pattern. On the other hand, if we approach him and deal with him, as though we're afraid he's going to take advantage of us, then he's likely to be inclined to do that. It might be a good addition to your golden rule to presuppose that a man is honest, until he gives you some good reason for believing he isn't. Of course, that is our fundamental basis under which our law is established and a man is innocent until proven guilty. I wonder if we shouldn't assume that a man is honest and has integrity until he has proven to us that

it is otherwise. I think this is the answer that the usual person who is in a religious field or who has given himself to a religious belief should take. The question is, does he? Now, we've noticed a breakdown in many other areas. We've mentioned government officials. Well, let's take a look at the tremendous amount of military waste that we hear and see talked about. Just recently, Admiral Rickover mentioned that you could eliminate 20 to 30 percent of the people working in the Pentagon building and get all the work done and probably get it done faster. Now, isn't this a matter of integrity then? If we've got that many people on the payroll drawing taxpayers money who are not productive? I would agree that this is a problem of integrity, and my question would be who's integrity at this point? A point which concerns me very much is that what point

does personal integrity and professional integrity become if you will corporate integrity or the integrity of a major industry or a major organization for which you are of which you are a part? I mean, yes. Bargain here? I think you can even go beyond a corporation. I think you can take it to the national level. One of the things which colonialization depends upon and the Habsburg Empire was the principle of divide and conquer. If you can convince enough individual people or small groups that every other group is against them by planting ideas in the mind of one group that the other group isn't to be trusted and then by the same at the same time plant them an idea in the mind of this group that the other one isn't to be trusted, it's possible for you to out of all this compound of individualities extract such a competitive thing that they have no one to depend upon except the one individual who is manipulating everything. This destroys the

integrity of the whole. You have the same thing in one individual person. If in one area of his conduct he is of one mind. If in another area of his conduct he would think things proper that would disagree. For example, suppose he separates his religion from his business and says this code is fine for my business, this is fine for my religious belief. This person does not have integrity because he has not integrated the two ideas of which may be majoring his ongoing life into one. He does not have unity and this is what integrity means, integrate to bring into one. Whether you're talking then of the individual or whether you're talking about a broad culture and nation or an industry, you've got the same principle under lying. Are we generally in agreement that by the things we see around us today, by the information that we're able to get through reading through various reports that the standard

of professional integrity is somewhat less than we would like to see it. That is my feeling. Unhazertainingly I would say that the overall standard is not what I believe was at one time or what I personally would like to see it. I would agree with you. I don't think it is what it ought to be but I think the general trend of our conversation thus far has slanted us already in a direction that we ought to pursue and this is the direction toward younger ages for the simple reason that the stage is pretty well set by the time and individual determines upon the profession that he wants to pursue. I think maybe this would be a good time for you to bring out some of those statistics that you talked about when we had our pre -discussion discussion. Well, and describe some of the things that went on with our young people in Korea. I was talking with a naval officer and the Navy has been tremendously concerned

about the moral fiber of our youth, stated that in the past year, 30 percent more of the enlisted personnel of the Navy has been AWOL, which is absent without leave, that there is on the average 1 ,000 court marshals a week now. This is during peacetime. This is in the Navy alone. In the Navy alone, yes. That during the Korean conflict, only 5 percent of our American boys who were taken prisoners were complete resistors to the Russians. I mean the Chinese Communist. Yes, the Chinese Communist. Thank you for correcting me. 15 percent were completely cooperating with the Chinese Communist. 70 percent of them were opportunists. If they could get something out of it, they would be willing to give information or to cooperate with them. Now, this is a pretty serious situation. In the first

time in the history of our military operations, from the revolutionary days, not a single boy made a successful escape from a prison camp. In addition to that, 39 percent of those who died in the Korean prison camps were due to what is called to give up itus. It has medically been stated that a person who gives up complete will to live will die in 48 hours. And think about nearly 40 percent of those who died because they had nothing to hold on to. No religious beliefs, no philosophy of life. They didn't care about country, friends cared about nothing. Can you tie this in now with the idea of integrity? Yes, I think it is because integrity is a part of our life. It's the code by which we live and by which we operate. Well, I like to describe it as the

guide lights to a landing strip at an airport on a stormy and foggy night. They help to bring the pilot in and to keep him on course. And that is the reason why I feel many of these people fall apart. Literally fall apart mentally and morally is because they do not have these guide lights by which to help them through the stormy and the troublesome and the dangerous areas of their lives. And all of us go through problems that we think are tragic. Without commenting further on these on these figures, which I think speak rather frighteningly for themselves, I wonder if we could get down to the very basic question of why we find this lack of standard, this lack of integrity at this particular time. Well, I have some definite ideas, but Chaplain, let's give you a chance to express yourself. There are so many things involved here that it's pretty difficult to make any kind of succinct statement. Can we start with values in the home? Well,

the basic thing involved here certainly is basic values. And you might also say spiritual values because, well, we could go on with definitions that would interrelate these to, but I don't think it's pertinent to do so. We have the breakdown of the home. We have laws being passed which prohibit the teaching of certain things in our schools. We have churches, which are completely dependent upon monetary support. And in order to find their monetary support, it is often necessary for them to go easy on principles. Taking the line of least resistance and accomplishing things in what seems to be the easiest and quickest and most successful way by other than the Marland spiritual standards is, I think, the thing which contributes primarily to the overall breakdown. With a breakdown in all of the major areas and we could bring in some of the popular media that is contributing also to this,

I think we can say that our young people are not being given the framework upon which they can grow up. They don't understand what integrity means and they see no reason for it because they see so little of it among the older people. What are they being given in place of of this framework? Well, I would like to pick up one point that the chaplain mentioned. That's about broken homes. It's startling to realize that there are approximately 12 million children from broken homes or about one -fourth of all our children. Do you realize that that means almost four cities, the size of Chicago made up of children from broken homes? Now let's carry this a little farther and see what effect it has in other areas. And again, I'd like to refer to the Navy's survey in which in a period of time they discovered that of all those men who were in the brig and that's the Navy jail, 85 % of them came from broken homes. And this

goes back, I think, to what you said, chaplain, that they see no need for living a life of integrity, honest to your decency because they have no standards set up for them, no guidance, no help. Again, I think you mentioned before that many of us live by example. We see someone else that we admire and respect and we try to follow and do what he does. The influence of the home I feel is tremendous. Far more than many people realize, our Director of Admissions at Illinois Institute of Technology recently made a survey and it's not conclusive because it isn't large enough. But the indications were in that that four times as many young people were influenced by their parents, their home life as to the course of study or the vocation that they would follow as from influence from any other source. And this to me was... I have had some experience with this sort of thing. And usually, I'm not going to say but usually the

guidance that is given by the family to a young person in the choice of his chosen field is not the one which will bring about the greatest happiness, the most fruitful kind of life for the individual concerned. It is usually made upon some monetary base. What is he being taught is important. This is what I would like to find out. Well, I think you've hit upon the thing here money. I wonder if money, as someone said, is the root of all evil. That money is really our measuring stick, the guidepost by which we go by. This is how much money can we get out of life by following a certain course of education by getting a certain job, working with a certain company. As individuals, as human beings, what we have basically are two things. We've got time and we've got energy which depends of course upon the state of our health. But both of these are sold to employers by ourselves. And in selling our time and energy, we get a return in money which becomes the currency, the means of negotiation

for the acquisition of the things which we need in order that we might get more energy because without these things we wouldn't be able to put in our time. And then all of the other creature comforts arise from this as well. But money is so central in the physical existence of the individual and in his day -to -day routines that it's often easy for this to be set up as the thing around which all of life revolves. If it is this way in a given home, it doesn't even have to be so stated. It's implicit. If it is even implicit, the child knows this. But if it is implicit, it is also the thing which will be the main guide for the parents in selecting a particular vocation for their child. As a result, the child is led into a field which he may have very, very little interest in, except for that which may come out as future reward. This ties in with one of the things in the Jacobs report. The values held by three -fourths of our college students. One of the things which called a value

in this report was college education itself. And the only thing I could derive from it was that college education was seen as a kind of barter by which you could get a better job. What you're saying then is this that many of the things are nothing but a means to an end, that in themselves there's no particular value of achievement or accomplishment. It's just a stepping stone to something else. And the easiest way they can do it, they're going to follow it. And that leads us into another disturbing problem. And that's the amount of cheating that's been reported in high schools and colleges. I think this ties in with the overall on what we have been talking about before. Ties in with the Navy and so on. But you said something else just a minute ago. You said that. I was talking about the juvenile delinquents and

about the broken homes. Is that the area in which we were referring? Let me take up a point here that I have been thinking about. And that is this. In this problem, naturally we're talking about the youth because the youth is the foundation in which the future of this country rests. Now that doesn't mean of course that we don't have a problem with professional integrity with those already in business in the professions, law, medicine, dentistry and so forth. What do you feel can be done in that respective areas? You have led me right back into the thing that I was trying to bring out before. You said something about integrity not being related at all to what a person chooses as his career field. That these things are means to an end. Integrity depends upon a long -range goal. It depends upon the happiness which an individual thinks

he might find in the exercise of this particular set of abilities for a definite purpose. Everything revolves around the long -range purpose. It is the end that counts and the means are the stepping stones by which you approach to this end. This is with integrity, you see. But without integrity, the means become the end. The college education is the immediate end because this is the thing which is going to get me a better job. But the individual isn't really concerned for what he's going to do until he dies. He's not selling his life in a very real sense. Gentlemen, we have just two or three minutes left here. I think we have in effect defined the problem as we see it. We suggested some reasons why this problem exists. For these last few minutes, I wonder if we want to tackle the area of what can be done about this problem? I think that's a very good approach. Would you like to tell us something of what some of

your plans are and what's being done on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus? Yes, I can tell you a few things. The first thing that I think I ought to say though is that there is a broad framework within which anything which is done ought to be considered. That broad framework is within the area of challenge and specifically within the area of challenge on Marlon's spiritual values. It's a kind of thing which will bring to the attention of college students and others, not just college students, but Illinois Tech it obviously would be, to bring to their attention situations life problems which demand of them an intelligent judgment on such a deep level that once having judged they have begun to set up a habit pattern of action which will enable them to function on the basis of what they've learned through the previous learning experience. Now this is in a very broad and I think this is the principle which ought to be applied wherever whatever the situation

may be. At Illinois Tech specifically we are trying to bring specific problems to the minds of individual students and we've done this by such means as coffee hours with open discussion questions. They bring up the questions and we toss it back to them and make them make the decision on a personal basis. It is something that must be relevant to their own lives and give meaning to everything that they've ever done. Do you think this program is brought enough? No, it certainly isn't brought enough. Excuse me, go ahead. That's all right. I was going to mention money and I thought it better. What else do you think should be done? Well I feel that personally each of us as an individual can do something. Now very few people in the world can do anything of importance that's going to be very earth -shaking but it is tremendously important, highly essential that each of us do that respective

part, our share, of trying to live a better life of integrity because if we don't do our job it will never be done. I've heard a lot of people say oh well if I don't do it then George will do it. Well no George won't do it because what George does is George's job and if he spends time trying to do mine then he isn't going to be doing his. Gentlemen I'm going to have to interrupt here. Thank you both very much for our discussion this morning. Chaplain William D. Fannen, Mr. Ralph Sterling Director of Development and Public Relations at Illinois Tech. Thank you for talking to us about professional integrity. This is John Buckstaff for the American Scene. Good morning.