Architects Talking Ethics #3: I’m confused: Where can I get answers to the ethical questions that come up in my practice?; The Architect's Newspaper, June 3, 2024

Victoria Beach, Peggy Deamer, Tom Fisher  , The Architect's Newspaper; Architects Talking Ethics #3:

I’m confused: Where can I get answers to the ethical questions that come up in my practice?

"This is the third entry in Architects Talking Ethics, an advice column that intends to host a discussion of the values that architects embody or should embody. It aims to answer real-world ethical questions posed by architects, designers, students, and professors.

We, as the three initial authors of this column, think the profession is way behind in how it addresses ethics. We think architects should explore our own ethics with the breadth and depth that other fields have done for a long time...

Architectural practitioners sometimes confuse ordinary ethics or business ethics with professional ethics. Ordinary ethics considers how we all should treat one another, while business ethics deals with the conflicts that can arise when balancing your company’s interests and those of your employees against those of clients. Both of these are incredibly important. However, in the world of professional ethics, where “professional” indicates those licensed to perform defined activities by the state, the first consideration is one’s duty to the public. Architects, in other words, have fiduciary responsibilities to clients and employees, professional obligations to colleagues and the discipline, and, like all professions, an overriding responsibility to the public.

Our profession’s codes of ethics as outlined by the American Institute of Architects (AIA, which again regulates only those architects volunteering to be members of its organization), however, are less than clear about the order of those obligations."

2 Sentenced to House Arrest in Long-Running Scheme to Steal Rare Books; The New York Times, June 20, 2020

Michael Levenson, The New York Times; 2 Sentenced to House Arrest in Long-Running Scheme to Steal Rare Books

[Kip Currier: We've been exploring this egregious breach of public trust and abject dereliction of institutional leadership as a case study in the new The Information Professional in the Community graduate course I launched this term.

Glaring and appallingly negligent instances of organizational malfeasance and breach of fiduciary responsibility -- over the course of more than 20 years -- are replete throughout this sordid saga. Much, if not all, of what was perpetrated by the morally-deficient defendants, archivist Gregory Priore and local bookshop owner John Schulman, was foreseeable and preventable by those charged with the duties of safeguarding and shepherding our cultural heritage and scientific treasure. Organizational leaders and Boards should also be held accountable for these kinds of ethical lapses and fiduciary failures that occur on their watches.]

"Patrick Dowd, board chair of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, said the thefts “will forever raise doubts about the security of all future charitable donations, particularly to the Carnegie Library.”"

National Monuments From Mr. Obama; New York Times, 8/26/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; National Monuments From Mr. Obama:

"On Wednesday, a day before the 100th birthday of the National Park Service, Mr. Obama designated 87,500 acres of Maine’s north woods as a national monument, to be added to the park system and protected by the service against commercial exploitation. The transaction cost the government nothing. The land belonged to Roxanne Quimby, who lived in the Maine woods before making a fortune as a co-founder of Burt’s Bees and accumulating property with the idea of turning it into a national park. Her family also provided an endowment of $20 million for maintenance.

Then, on Friday, Mr. Obama used the same authority to greatly expand a national marine monument (established a decade ago by President George W. Bush) off the coast of his native Hawaii. The monument will encompass 582,578 square miles of land and sea, and provide protection from commercial exploitation for an estimated 7,000 species that are increasingly stressed by climate change.

Both designations drew criticism — from timber interests in Maine, fishermen in Hawaii and officials in both places who resent federal stewardship. Though neither designation will impose economic hardship, there is invariably complaining whenever Washington asserts a public interest in land that states and private interests think should be theirs. But if presidents waited until there was complete agreement, Teddy Roosevelt would never have protected the Grand Canyon and Franklin Roosevelt would never have protected Joshua Tree National Park."

Record Crowds And A Growing List Of Challenges As America's National Parks Turn 100; Here & Now, WBUR, 8/22/16

[Podcast] Here & Now, WBUR; Record Crowds And A Growing List Of Challenges As America's National Parks Turn 100:

"The National Park Service is planning a huge celebration this week in Yellowstone to honor the centennial of the America’s park system. Visits are booming, but American parks are also facing problems, including a multibillion-dollar maintenance backlog.

Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson discusses with parks director Jonathan Jarvis.

Guest

Jonathan Jarvis, director of the National Park Service. He tweets @JonsMoustache. The park service tweets @NatlParkService."

The Trusted Grown-Ups Who Steal Millions From Youth Sports; New York Times, 7/7/16

Bill Pennington, New York Times; The Trusted Grown-Ups Who Steal Millions From Youth Sports:

"A county court judge had ordered Mr. Farley to repent publicly to club members as part of his guilty plea, and so there he stood, in front of a throng of children sitting cross-legged on a grassy ball field waiting to play. The club’s leaders were so fearful that an irate parent might charge or assault Mr. Farley that they hired security to maintain order...

Yet with the growth and development has come a long list of embezzlement and other corruption cases unfolding in a void of oversight and regulation and capitalizing on community trust.

Across the country, people who volunteered as treasurers and other officers for Little Leagues and sports clubs have been prosecuted for pilfering gobs of money from the coffers: $220,000 in Washington, $431,000 in Minnesota, $560,000 in New Jersey, and so on, according to law enforcement authorities, league officials, experts on nonprofit organizations and news reports."