Chabot Academic/Faculty Senate Professional Ethics Statement
Senate Unanimously Adopted, December 9, 2004 

1. As instructors, Librarians and Counselors for Chabot College, all Faculty encourage the free pursuit of learning in their students. They hold before them the best scholarly and ethical standards of their discipline.   Faculty demonstrate respect for students as individuals and adhere to their proper roles as intellectual guides and counselors.  Faculty make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to assure that their evaluations of students reflect each student’s true merit.  They respect the confidential nature of the relationship between instructor and student.  They avoid harassment or discriminatory treatment of students.  They protect the students’ academic freedom and rights. 
   
   
2. Faculty, guided by a deep conviction of the worth and dignity of the advancement of knowledge, recognize the special obligations placed upon them.  Their primary responsibility to their subject is to seek and to state the truth as they see it.  To this end, Faculty devote their energies to developing and improving their scholarly competence.  They accept the obligation to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in the application, expansion, and transmission of knowledge.  They practice intellectual honesty and resolve to never seriously hamper or compromise their primary responsibility. 
   
   
3. Faculty have the responsibility to control the technique of instruction and the course content, consistent with the approved course outline, the catalog description, and the rights of the students.  Faculty understand and demonstrate a commitment to academic freedom as an essential and integral part of the classroom experience. 
   
   
4. As a collective group of colleagues, which includes Faculty, Staff and Administrators, Faculty have obligations that derive from common membership in this company of scholars.  Faculty do not discriminate against or harass colleagues.  They respect and defend the free inquiry of associates.  In the exchange of criticism and ideas, Faculty show due respect for the opinions of others.  Faculty acknowledge academic debt and strive to be objective in their professional judgment of colleagues.  Faculty accept their share of faculty responsibilities for the governance of their institution. 
   
   
5. As members of an academic institution, Faculty seek above all to be effective teachers and scholars.  Although Faculty observe the stated regulations of the institution, they ensure that regulations support and do not contravene academic freedom, they maintain their right to criticize and seek revision.  Faculty give due regard to their paramount responsibilities within their institution in determining the amount and character of work they do outside it. 
   
   
6. As members of their community, Faculty have the rights and obligations of other citizens. Faculty measure the urgency of these obligations in light of their responsibilities to their subject, to their students, to their profession, and to their institution.  When they speak or act as private persons, they avoid creating the impression of speaking or acting for their college.  As citizens engaged in a profession that depends upon freedom for its health and integrity, Faculty have a particular obligation to promote conditions of free inquiry and to further public understanding of academic freedom. 
   
   
7. The Chabot College Faculty hold themselves to historical and respected national positions on issues related to professional ethics and academic freedom.  In particular, the Academic Senate has established as policy its affirmation and endorsement of the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) 1966 Statement on Professional Ethics (including academic freedom) and the 1940 Statement of Principles and Interpretive Comments as printed in the 1984 edition of the AAUP Policy Documents and Reports.