Dr. Oxley speaks on Integrity & Honor

Yesterday was awesome: classes were great, my student instructor position in AT315 is getting better (as I slowly get more comfortable teaching), and my constitution committee meeting was wickedly involved.

Anyways, I’d rather focus on today… I have had a seriously packed day. My school day included: working in the Student Activities office, a quiz in Thunderstorms class, office work in SGA to prep for our Student Representative meeting, review of the Student Representative meeting, working with the IT department for the SGA website to figure out the mySQL database access, discussion in Technology in Modern Culture class, followed by discussion on Integrity & Honor for NSCS, and then a conference call for AFICU in April. Today was packed.

Regardless of what I did today, I want to talk about the NSCS meeting with Dr. Oxley that focused on Integrity and Honor.

Wow, Dr. Oxley did a good job. Before we start: define integrity.

Furthermore, define honor.

… hard huh? I defined integrity as an overall respect for yourself and others while honor was a solid respect for other people. Boy was I off.

Dr. Oxley related the importance of integrity towards the end of our discussion, “Honor comes from your social groups… so pick them wisely. Integrity comes from within.” And was he right. Honor is relative to the culture you are in; Integrity is specific to you. Be respectful to yourself and the values you know to be true; that is what I now define integrity.

A scenario: Your plane crashes on a remote island. You eventually meet with the local inhabitants whom greatly respect you. In honor of your presence, the group hosts a ceremony in which a young girl will be sacrificed. And you, as the honored guest, shall yield the knife to kill her. Their honor culture is to give you the gift of killing a young girl. What do you do?

One of many important parts in today’s great discussion was that honor is incredibly culture-based. Every culture will have a different idea of honor and how to uphold it because honor is based on the environment you are in. Integrity is different. Integrity involves you and your values… and how well you can stay true to them.

So, if you answered the previous scenario saying that you would not kill the young girl. Why?

How would you stop it from happening?

What if the native inhabitants say, “If you won’t kill her, then we’ll sacrifice you?” … how strong are your values? Your integrity? At what point will you give in?

I must go now — but before I do, let me end with personal thoughts:

Respect is key. I mean that respect for other students, faculty, staff, and buildings is key.

Remember to respect those around you.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call or e-mail with questions or concerns.

Regards,

Alton(Joe)Anderson   386-334-3939   andersa1@my.erau.edu

Advertisement