In my psych class, the teacher has offered five points on the final grade (yes, at least .3333 GPA points on a 4.0 scale) to anyone who comes and donates blood today. Apparently, the different departments at the University are competing to see who can grab the most students. Needless to say, this strikes me as a bit iffy.
Does the red cross even allow things like this? I started a thread a few months ago about why the red cross doesn’t pay people to donate blood, and the responses were that, typically, the blood would be more likely to be tainted and people who normally give would not if it the incentive were transferred from moral to economic.
Finally, should non-academic activities even count towards academic credit? You can bet I would never do something like this were I a professor, nor would I even try to slide it by the dean. Yet here we are.
note: People who are unable or unwilling to give blood can volunteer for 2 hours instead.
Sorry, gotta go. I’m off to donate blood
sidenote: I know when the word “ethics” appears in a title, people love to use the scarequotes when talking about “rules” or things they feel are silly. Let’s try to keep the scarequotes to a minimum
Then, yes. The question isn’t if it’s ethical to give credit for donating blood, but if “extra credit” is ethical. 5 points is quite a bit, but if it were the more realistic “replace one out of ten homeworks” that would equivocate to 1 point, likely nobody would do it.
No, I do not believe it would ethical. He is setting up an extra credit program that a majority of people are not eligible for. From what I’ve read, only 38% of people in the US are eligible. It seems that it would encourage quite a few people to lie to become eligible.
IMO I don’t think it is ethical that a psych teacher would give extra credit for people donating BLOOD. What if the person jabbing the needle in you screws up and hurts you? Some people who give blood feel awful afterwards too…a friend of mine passed out after she gave blood when I was in high school.
Giving class credit for blood donations is unethical. Class credit is the teacher’s certification of your competence in the subject matter. We have a right to expect competence on the part of dentists and pilots and civil engineers strictly on the basis of their educational credentials and in the absence of any other information. In fact, modern society could hardly function otherwise. A teacher that certifies more competence than you exhibited in the classroom, for any reason, is committing fraud.
The larger issue aside, this part strikes me as unfair. I’d like to donate blood but they won’t let me. So if I want the same credit as my fellow classmates, instead of sitting on a couch for 30 minutes donating blood, I must volunteer my efforts somewhere for two hours. Unfair!
I don’t see a problem with it - except that, of course, some people are forbidden to donate blood because of their religious beliefs, and offering this sole means of alternate volunteerism will not remove this disparate impact when it comes to religion.
I don’t know that it would affect someone directly, but it could. And since it could, it ought to be fixed so that it doesn’t.
We used to get “vampire liberty” in the Navy, so I’m not opposed to the concept. Just watch the application.
Purchased blood is many times more likely to bear disease, and as a result, most donation facilities will not accept it. This extra credit scheme is purchasing blood, and probably doing so in a way that bypasses the usual safeguards in place. So the nitwit teacher is exposing unknown numbers of innocent people to dangers without their knowledge. I think someone should tell the School administration.
I hesitate to call it unethical, but I think it is unprofessional for a teacher to offer grade incentives to students to do things that have nothing to do with the class.
Students didn’t sign up for a class in volunteerism, and therefore community service should have nothing to do with one’s grade. Moreover, although the cause is worthy, it is clear to me that the professor’s motivation is at least partially suspect: he wants to win this competition between academic departments and has devised a system to help him/his department achieve that distinction. (I’m wondering if the two hour volunteer commitment also counts in the standings?)
So why is this a problem? Because there are lots of people out there who do good things that do not involve giving blood or volunteering for two hours. For example, just last week I gave a donation to a local effort here to provide phone cards, toiletries, and other basic stuff to wounded soldiers returning to the United States. If a student did a similar deed, it doesn’t appear that he’d receive the benefit of extra credit on the exam. Someone who plans to trim their hair at years’ end and make a donation to Locks of Love doesn’t really fit in this scheme, either.
I’d say the professor is well-meaning, but I heartily disagree with his methods.
I agree. I tend to reserve ethical judgments to cases where harm - real, hypothetical, or large-upon-scaling - can occur. I don’t really see the *harm *here - 5 points isn’t really the difference between “This student has mastered the subject” and “This student doesn’t know is Jung from a hole in the ground” - but it still ain’t quite right.
If it was elementary or high school, where teachers are teaching how to be good people as well as math and reading, then sure. But grades in college are supposed to be about the subject in the course catalog, not about creating good citizens.
Sorry, I had to leave for a bit and realized I didn’t address this point.
Given that the two hours is a more significant amount of time than a blood donation (especially since it sounds like the donation site is there at the university) it is not an equal option.
I hold that those that are uneligible would be more likely to lie and donate anyway to save the extra time.
No, you say it’s unethical to give extra credit for donating BLOOD, whereas I said the question of weather* or not extra credit is ethical, period**.
*Is that what I’m spelling wrong? What is it supposed to be?
I would be pissed if my professor was offering a huge grade boost for doing something not everyone is allowed to do for a silly interdepartment donation competition. I would also feel that the two-hour volunteering “alternative” was bullshit, intentionally designed to be less appealing than donating blood.
