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One of the most interesting questions people asked me when the Forward with Integrity letter first appeared, was what I’d meant with that word “integrity.”
Because of course, the first assumption when we use that word is that we’re referring to human characteristics, or characteristics I should say of human behavior, where of course, it’s taken to mean a lapse of ethics in people’s actions.
Of course that is the normal meaning of the word and it bears upon the life of the university most definitely in that obviously in the interests of McMaster,
everybody is expected to conduct themselves with integrity when they’re dealing with the material resources of the University, when they’re dealing with other members of faculty, or staff, or students.
Maintaining relationships that are relationships of integrity and ethically sound is obviously critical.
So yes, of course, when you use the word integrity, you mean that. That is the kind of institution that we want to have - one that is built around those very fundamental good values of human action and human cooperation.
But then as you begin to extend the use of that word, you get into the area that I was really keen to push into with the letter, which is to take us away from simply thinking about aligning what we do with values that are appropriate to an institution like ours.
To align them more generally so that integrity comes to mean wholeness.
So that what’s happening here on the research front is in some way integral to what’s happening on the education front, and so on. Pulling it all together and aligning things appropriately.
That was the thrust of the letter to say that our strength does not reside in a sort of false simplification of the mission of the University.
Universities are fabulously complex institutions, but our strength resides in our aligning all the various components of the institution to the best possible effect.
So that means integrity refers to alignment across the whole spectrum.
Beginning with our conduct as individuals, from the tiniest things, how we deal with the department petty cash budget, to at the furthest extreme,
how we make decisions strategically about where we’re going to go in terms of identifying our research strengths and the kind of work we’re going to do,
to the question of how we’re going to orient ourselves to the community, how we’re going to deal with students and address the aspirations and the goals of students.
It has to be everywhere. I think the vision here is of an institution consistent with itself founded on the best ethical principles and the best academic principles
and all of these things oriented in support of each other, to, I suppose, help us realize the true potential of the institution.