Linda Nowakowski News

สวัสดีวันปีใหม่ - Happy New Year 2552!

Alas and alack! Thai New Year is back again.

Life has been so busy for the last 8 weeks that the arrival of Songkran this year was a rude shock.

In the last couple of months I have

Finished the school year

Written and defended my research proposal (the preface and first three chapters of my thesis)

Written a last minute paper to present at the conference

Completed the long awaited 2nd International Conference of the Buddhist Economic Research Platform

Either thrown away, shipped, packed for storage or packed to go home, all of my earthly possessions

It has been too busy - WAY too busy! And it came to an end way too abruptly. The conference ended dramatically on Saturday when we started the day with a huge storm and breakfast at the Asoke community on campus. The vans and buses got stuck in the mud - I had walked from my apartment in the rain and landed up doing most of it bare footed in the mud. Obviously, there was no tour of the community. When we got to the lecture hall, the power was out so we proceeded and gathered close (to be able to hear) to the windows (for light) and had presentations without powerpoints. Not much later, it was announced that the Prime Minister had declared a State of Emergency but we had little information beyond that. Having had the December conference postponed because of another State of Emergency, it was a nightmare for me. Foreigners, a State of Emergency, the Songkran holiday and lack of transportation...arggghhh...

We did manage to get people on planes, trains, buses and cars and get them safely headed home. Then Monday was the beginning of the 3 day official Songkran holiday. And there was a storm that put out the power. With no one working there was no internet at the University so no work for me! Plus there were no songtows (truck buses) on campus so no going anywhere. Then there was the extension of the official holiday thru April 19th.... oh my. I managed to flag down an errant songtow this morning to get out since I also had no more money on my phone and no more food in the house - literally!

It is not good to go from 250 mph to 0 instantly but that has been my experience this week. Forced "do nothing".

I will leave Ubon on Friday next week to spend a few days in Bangkok before I fly out of Bangkok on the 29th: my birthday breakfast in Bangkok and my birthday dinner in San Francisco.

IF the State of Emergency doesn't get worse. This is Thailand.

Last comment added: Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:28:45 PDT

Council for a Parliment of the World's Religions

The 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions to be held December 3-9, 2009 in Melbourne, Australia is the largest interfaith event in the world. The Parliament will bring together more than 8000 people of faith, spirit and goodwill from around the world.

The major speakers at the event this year will include:

Fr. Laurence Freeman

Director of The World Community for Christian Meditation, UK

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Tibetan Buddhist Leader, India

Chief Oren Lyons

Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, USA

Professor Joy Murphy Wandin

Senior Aboriginal Woman of the Wurundjeri People, Australia

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar

Political Scientist and Founder of JUST, Malaysia

Rev. Dr. Ishmael Noko

General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation and Convenor of the Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa

Rev. Dr. Shanta D. Premawardhana

Director of Inter-religious Dialogue and Cooperation, World Council of Churches, Switzerland

Rabbi David Rosen

Chairman of International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, Israel

His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Spiritual Leader of The Art of Living Foundation, India

Dr. Karan Singh

Member of Parliament, Former Minister for Education and Culture, India

Dr. M. Din Syamsuddin

President of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia

The Program Committee for the 2009 Parliament invites program proposals to present a lecture, dialogue, workshop, panel discussion, religious or spiritual observance, workshop, training session or artistic performance. Full details are in the Call for Programs; This form begins the proposal submission; a second screen will ask for your bio and those of any co-presenters. Feel free to email any questions to program@parliamentofreligion s.org.

I am proposing to propose a panel discussion where I could invite people who are actively working in the field of faith based economics to discuss together how faith impacts the functioning of these economics systems and also address the importance of individual and community based actions.

The deadline for submissions is Friday so I am begging for your immediate assistance and feedback.

Thanks in advance.

Program Details

Title of Program: Values and a Human Economics

Format: Panel Discussion

How does your program relate to the 2009 Parliament theme: Make a World of Difference: Hearing each other, Healing the earth?

In today's broken world, economics is one of the most tangible ways in which we are all connected. In order to heal our economies, our environment and each other, we need to see more right behavior. Right behavior is driven by the values that we hold and these values that we hold are birthed by the faith communities we participate in. It is a crucial time to talk about how all of these things fit together in a seamless whole.

How does your program relate to the following goals of the Parliament:

In seeking justice and sustainable living, we actively express our commitment to a better world.

In recognizing the humanity of the other, we create the conditions for community.

In deepening our spirituality, we experience personal transformation.

Personal transformation is at the center of all of these points. A reawakening of our spirituality and the understanding of the human condition of inter-relatedness to one another and to the nature around us is perhaps the key piece required in establishing justice and sustainable living, recreating meaningful community and rediscovering the values required for all of them. All spiritual traditions I have looked at recognize the complex relationship between spirituality, individual, community and nature. All of our problems seem to arise as a decrease in personal spirituality upsets that balance and results in allowing the rise of the individual as separate from the whole and no longer responsible for personal action, community or the stewardship of nature. This imbalance results in the breakdown of community, the unsustainable lifestyles and economic practices, and the destruction of people, relationships and the environment in order to satisfy the new goal of "self-interest". It leads us to one of the paradoxes of all time that our ultimate "self-interest" lies in the subsumption of self-interest.

Only through this personal redevelopment can we ensure the future of humanity and our world.

How do the content, format and design of your program help to achieve these goals?

The participants of this assembly, coming from a wide diversity of faith backgrounds could, by speaking with one voice, provide the impetus to encourage communities of faith to urgently and diligently discuss and find the commonalities of values and community that need to be brought to the table in addressing economic issues.

Who do you predict your primary audience will be? Why?

I believe that this discussion has the potential of being of immediate interest to all participants. The economy affects each of us every day of our lives in some way or another, whether it is in the value of our currency in the marketplace, the stability of our livelihoods, or even just the secondary impact of the failing economy and the affect it has on our taxes and hence our income and ability to survive. Likewise, the solution to the problem is not and can not be left to the economists. Each of us are needed, through the values we bring into community and the marketplace, to return an ailing system that is destroying individuals, communities, livelihoods and the environment back to health. The primacy of our values to the proper functioning of the institutions of trust, justice, sustainability, and compassion (to name only a few) must be re-discovered.

Primarily, I would hope this panel would speak to those who have the power to initiate the viral growth in personal spiritual transformation creating a new thread of personal strength and responsibility in the overall fabric of right action and right thought which can lead to community revitalization, justice, sustainable practices, and the development of revitalized and more realistic economies resulting in the reduction or elimination of poverty.

25 Feb 2009: Edited to include changes recommended by Christina and David.

Last comment added: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:27:52 PST

NED connections - small world

Not long ago I got an email from Sinsia Kao of Taiwan. She said she had found me through NED. She had heard about Asoke and wanted to make a connection to them and asked if I could help her.

She arrived on Friday and we have made the connections and she is busy learning about sustainable development and living.

Sinsia is an elementary school teacher in Taiwan. She is in her m id 30's, single and looking for a life more in tune with the earth and with people. She had come to Thailand before and came back here about 2 months ago to get her certification in perma-culture in Chiang Mai. While she was there she heard about the Asoke communities and did a web search. When she left Chiang Mai she went to Laos to travel around for almost a month.

We talked about what drew her to return to Thailand. She said that here she finds real community in the small villages. She just wants to live a simple life in real community. She wanted to come here to learn about making soil houses, gathering seed, making soap... She has found much more. She was so excited to learn about growing mushrooms and seeing the installation of a small bio-diesel generator that will provide cooking fuel for the Ratchathani Asoke Community from the food scraps and agricultural garbage.

She will stay at Ratchathani Asoke with a couple of my fellow grad students and then on Wednesday they will take her to Srisa Asoke where she will get to see more and learn about alternative medicines. I will join her on Friday evening.

One of the first westerners to study the Asoke communities was Marja-Leena Heikala-Horn from Finland. She wrote one of the first books I read on the communities. She is now the head of the International College at Mahidol Salaya. She will be at Srisa Asoke for the week-end renewing old acquaintances. She and I are going to use the time to make an email friendship real.

I just got a notice from another friend of the Parliament of Religions 2009 to be held in Melbourne the beginning of December. It looks like a place I need to go to start a bigger conversation on how people of all faiths might be able to band together to turn around economics. Looks like I will shorten my trip to the US. Imagine my disappointment with missing the worst of winter!!!!

Gayle....can I sleep on your sofa?

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The journey begins in earnest.

This week has been eventful. It has sometimes seemed too eventful.

I gave the final for one of my course yesterday and finished grades today. The other class has 24 more ours of class but 6 are movies (and discussion), 3 is a class where all of the English speakers have been invited to come and practice business conversation, 3 are a competition in some strategy games they have learned, and 3 are them presenting songs and me presenting the prize for the best "Plan". The main part of their grans is a plan that they must prepare for what and how they will study during the 3 month summer break using all of the learning strategies they have learned this semester. A team of 3 of us will judge the plans (and I have to mark them for their grades). The winner will get my refurbished desk top computer, monitor, keyboard, head-set, mouse and color printer/copier/fax machine. That will all be over on Feb. 27.

My Thai class will have its final on March 6.

Bronwen is returning to Thailand and she and I will do a 1-day workshop on Buddhism and sustainable business on April 4. Then I have scheduled the defense of my research proposal for the day before the conference on April 8 ("Application of Faith-based Economics to Social Entrepreneurs: A Theoretical Approach" or something close). The conference is April 9-11. There is a "contemplative inquiry" session scheduled for the 12th. Songkran (Thai New Year) is celebrated April 12-15. I have been asked to write an article on the need for my research for the British Journal "Interconnections" for July publication. It needs to be written in this time.

I have already started packing stuff for shipment back to the US and for storage. I will leave Thailand on or about May 1 and fly to Guangzhou on a 0 baht fare (all you have to pay is the taxes and fees) to visit some friends there. Then I will take a 2 hour bus trip to Hong Kong to fly to San Francisco ( found a $1000 ro9und trip fare on Eva from there that combined with the other airfare and a bus certainly beats the $2,200 airfare home from Bangkok!). There are people there that I would like to talk to and interview, maybe even all together like Joanna Macy, Haney and Thomas and Pam and/or Pierre if they are around. It looks like I will be able to stay with a Thai family I know who live in Berkley. Then I will take a bus trip to Denver. Denver is a mother-lode for me. Naropa University (Peter Hurt and Deep Community Development) and the Marpa Center for Business and Economics (Bernard Leitear currency expert / designer of the Euro) are in Boulder. I want to talk with David Braden about his self-help corporation, and Arthur Brock about Alternative Currencies, Mickki Langston and eco-community development. The BALLE conference will be there May 21-23. I can not afford to attend the whole conference but I will be going to the one day of the economics conference. There is also a Christian community outside of Denver that is supposed to be very similar to the Asoke communities here and I want to go and visit it and talk to the people there. David Braden and his wife have generously offered me their home to stay in. (The super great discounted $139 hotel at the conference was just a little outside of my budget!)

After that I will get a bus home to Ohio. I had thought I would be able to stay at my sister's and share costs with her but I can not afford it. Just about the time I found out that bit of news, I got an email from a dear friend from graduate school and she has offered me her house to base out of. (This is only one of the things that has happened in this epic that hints that I have an angel watching over me here.)

During my time home I have a number of other trips planned with many people to interview. I will make a trip up to Massachusetts (to visit the Schumacher Foundation) and Vermont and hope to connect with John Nirenberg (he is on the graduate faculty at Walden University and has agreed to be on my research committee), Lars and John and Allison - community developers and social entrepreneurs all.

I want to go to Duke University in NC to talk with Dr. Timur Kuran Chair of Islamic studies and the author of "Islam and Mammon" a great and terribly interesting book on Islamic Economics.

I want to make a trip to Tyler, TX to talk with some people from the Institute for Christian Economics. I want to make a trip to the Pacific NW and hit Portland where I can talk with Mark (social Entrepreneur), Joel Magnuson and Mary Payne (both Buddhist and economists), and Robert Biwas-Deiner (expert in happiness research across a number of cultures). On that trip I would like to also go to Seattle and try to talk to David Korten and his People Centered Development people and visit the Seattle Unity Church (a combined Christian Buddhist faith community). While I am so close it only seems right to make a trip to Salt Spring Island, Meron, NED and SOLID. Coming back on that trip I want to also visit Salt Lake City and visit their Welfare Square and talk to the people in charge of that.

Much closer to home, I have found a small "nest" of heterodox economists at Wright State University (my alma mater) and one of them even teaches Buddhist Economics. Buddhist philosopher and Socially engaged Buddhist, David Loy is a visiting professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Author Wendell Berry is about a 2 hour drive away in KY. Happiness and anti-consummerist Tim Kasser is close in Illinois.

Using a bus, I can do all of the traveling for just under $1,000. Since I did not get a grant that I had applied for from the Templeton Foundation, I need to be frugal.

I plan on returning here to Thailand in the spring of 2010 hopefully with thesis in hand and ready to defend it.

I am looking forward to a break from Thailand. I am looking forward to doing all of the research work. I am not particularly looking forward to all of the work between now and May 1. :-)

I will survive. I will thrive.

If anyone knows of any "sufficiency economy like" communities in the US regardless of faith or even no faith, I would love the tip.

Last comment added: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:47:30 PST

An open note to Obama

MoveOn.org is preparing a petition to President Obama regarding the selection of a Secretary for Health and Human Services as part of its campaign for Health Care.

I signed that petition and wrote the following comment to President Obama:

I am a teacher currently teaching in Thailand. I am currently faced with many hard decisions. Coming home to the US permanently is not really an option for me with the economy what it is. Why? Because I am over 60, cannot retire or access my retirement money, cannot get a job in the US that will even provide me with the basic necessities - housing, clothing, food and medicine. The task of preparing to come home becomes daunting as I consider the possibility of getting ill or having an accident and facing the cost of health care. It is terrifying. I think of loosing what little savings I now have access to, and then having to access the retirement money I still have (and paying penalties to do so). These are terrifying considerations. It is more than disheartening to have worked this long and face these kinds of choices at this point in my life.

You represent hope to me that I haven't felt or seen in years. Please continue to work diligently so that all people can have access to the basic necessities in life and will have the time and energy to work for something better. When we are focused on survival, it is hard to find the financial and personal resources to move higher.

Sincerely,

Linda Nowakowski

Please consider joining me in signing this petition.

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A question for Davos

(from my blog - http://lindernswwworld.blogspot. com/2009/01/question-for-davos.h tml

A friend of mine recently used a phrase that hit me strong: Economics - where real people are spending real money.

It really made somethings clear to me. Isn't a major part of the problem we are having now that economics is based on a model using man as a rational creature with perfect information making decisions driven purely by self-interest? That is about as far away from real people as I can imagine getting. And real money? Debt backed money may be equally far away from real money.

I realize we got to where we are with many tiny little steps but now we are at the abyss and need to take big and bold actions to save things. How do we turn around the whole distorted model of economics?

mindfulness ....

thinking about what you are doing thinking about why you are doing it thinking about what the effects of doing it are going to be

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Ahhhhh....2009

You know...it really doesn't feel like 2009. Seems like we were just worried about the Y2K problems but that is like nearly 10 years behind us now.

It also doesn't feel like we are heading into the last week of Jan.

Oh well....things have slowed down and that is what is making me happy at the moment.

I had the distinct honor of having an English speaking buddy for a month from the end of November to the end of December. Dr. Bronwen Rees was here for a month from Cambridge teaching Buddhism and sustainable businesses. She was teaching my students so it was reassuring to know that I she was reading the problems with the students the same as me. I felt sane again! We were also joined with another English speaker, a Fulbright scholar from The Medical School of S. Carolina. I met her when she came here two years ago to talk at the first Buddhist Economics conference we hosted here. She is back here for four months this time doing some research in community health care systems. The three of us scouted out western restaurants and an incredible Vietnamese restaurant. It all inspired me to do cooking. I am sure that all of that is what brought on my attacks last week that turned out to be gall stone problems. It hurt like hell but that food sure tasted good going down!

Anyhow, not being interested in drastic treatment for the gall stones, I contacted one of our grad students how does traditional and alternative medicine at the Asoke community in Srisaket. I went over there and she treated me for 4 days and the gall stones are no more. The cost was appealing - 0 baht...and she has ordered me not to eat in the evening and to give up meat. I had given up meat pretty much before Lisa, Bronwen and I started doing the western food hunt but if I am going to eat vegetarian, it has to be at home since there is no vegetarian food in the cafeteria. That means evening. So, Ounuea (my "doctor") has arranged for one of the students from the Asoke community on campus (Boy) to bring me my lunch everyday from the community. This is like totally awesome.

The conference that had been scheduled for Dec 5-7 had to be postponed since the demonstrators had possession of the airports and people couldn't get here. It has been rescheduled for April 9-11 right before Songkran and likely during Holy Week and Spring Break.

The Vice president of the University decided not to renew my contract which expires at the end of February for some weird, no longer worth even speaking about reasons. They made me angry. They still wanted me to stay and chair the conference. I wanted to but really couldn't afford to sit here for 2 months with no contract, no income and having to leave the country 3 times to extend my visa only to have to be on the first plane out of Bangkok after the conference. They were willing to pay me but it would have been illegal. With the things that had been said, I was somewhat concerned to do that since all anyone would have to do is call immigration and show I was getting paid while on a tourist visa and they would deport me and I could never return. So, I told them that with no contract, I would be leaving March 1 and I needed to know by last week since I was not going to wait to the last minute to buy an airfare and pay a premium price because they were slow. Aj. Apichai talked to the President of the University and they got me a new contract. It runs til the 1st of May and will set me up to return.

So, I will be returning to the US about the 1st of May and staying for about a year. I had found out a couple of weeks ago that my scholarship for my PhD is not tied to my employment so I will be registered as a grad student here all next year and then will be able to come back and defend my thesis. So I will be doing research for a year. Why not? What are the chances of a woman over 60 who has been working outside the country for most of the last 11 years getting a job in this economy?

I have been making lists of people I want to interview and communities of practice I want to visit. A large number of things centered around Denver - Naropa and deep community development, Marpa Institute of Business and Economics (Bernard Leitear), Art Brock (alternative currencies), David Braden (self-help corporations, Mickki Langston (BALLE and eco communities), the Sunshine Ranch (a sustainable spiritual community)...and in August Thich Nhut Hanh is having a retreat. So I was kind of looking at a trip to Denver in Aug. Turns out now I am going to Denver the end of May for the BALLE conference for the Economics session. I will be staying with David Braden and his wife and trying to set up a mini-conference of my own to bring all of those other people together into the same room because I think they all have pieces to the ultimate economic puzzle. Maybe I will get to go back in Aug. for the retreat anyhow.

John Powers listed a link for me somewhere that led me to a document on the Templeton Foundation Website. (It was The Big Question Series - Does the free market corrode moral character?) I don't think I could find a foundation that was a better fit for my research if I founded it myself. Anyhow, I have applied for a travel grant to cover the cost of my exhaustive trips crisscrossing the US over the next year. I hope to interview Joanna Macy in the Bay Area, Joel Magnuson, Robert Biwas-Deiner (studies happiness measurements) and Mark in Portland, David Korton in Seattle (and hopefully visit a Buddhist Christian Spiritual community there), maybe swing up to Salt Spring Island and see that community (possibly be able to entice Mr. Brosseuk and Mrs. Brosseuk) and perhaps hit Salt Lake City to visit Welfare Square on the way home. I want to go to Tyler, TX to visit the institute for Christian Economics. I want to interview Timur Kuran at Duke, an expert on Islamic Economics. I would like to talk with the Schumacher people in Great Barrington, MA and figure out how to spend some time talking with Ravi in NJ. I will likely be base camping with my sister near Dayton, OH and that will allow me to hopefully work with a couple of heterodox economists at my undergrad alma mater, Wright State Univ. There are also a couple of trips planned to Xavier in Cincinnati to talk to David Loy (Buddhist Philosopher) and Tim Kasser in IL (he studies consumerism). Sometime in this extended stay I will be spending some time in Pittsburgh visiting my son and for sure John.

So with all of this stuff in the works, I got a new title! Director of Buddhist Economic Networking. It's pretty funny but it should help open some doors.

If anyone knows of communities of practice that are sustainable and ethical, I would be interested in knowing about them. The sooner the better so I can try to coordinate this year of travel to minimize the cost. The bus fare round trip from Dayton to Denver is $130, the special discounted, bargain rate hotel room is $139 a night! That would be way out of my league especially if I don't get the grant.

OK....the week-end is here and it is mine. No class prep. No grading. I need to finish a couple of books. I have been asked to write a 7000 word essay on faith based economics for the Journal Interconnections out of Cambridge, UK. I have much work to do.

I am relaxed and smiling again...at least for a while. I see the end of the tunnel....there is light!

Last comment added: Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:55:14 PST

An update on my life in Ubon

Things have been frantic since October and seem to be starting to settle a little for a little.

The book editing is done. It was done too fast and it really should have had more time. The book is now published and there are many errors but they are irritating more than crippling. The book is readable.

With all of the political turmoil here, the conference was postponed. We met last week and have decided to reschedule for April 9-11.

This was/is problematic for me. My promotion and my contract to teach next year were deep-sixed for ridiculous and counter-able reasons. I had initially said to just forget it all as it was clear that there was a faction of people here who do not want me here and I was just tired. I was planning to return home and just forget my PhD work. My current contract ends March 1. This would have meant that I could not be here for the conference. This was problematic for the conference because if I am not here, I am sad to say, the conference will not happen. Apichai suggested that I allow him to reopen my contract and promotion negotiations and kind of let them know that without it, the conference dies. With that, I asked him if it would be possible for me to have a one year, unpaid leave of absence to go home and do research for the PhD. He agreed.

I think what this means (note that this is Thailand and anything can change at anytime) I will be going back to the States in May sometime. I will stay in the states for a year and spend time doing the research for my PhD focusing on a comparative analysis of faith based economics and determining if they can be integrated to a whole that augments each of them and allows for cross communications. It might also provide me time to work on writing a basic text book for Buddhist Economics. (The one course I am needed for here is Buddhist Economics and it will not be offered again until June of 2010.)

This would allow me to go back to the States and talk with people there like David Loy at Xavier U in Cincinnati, Bernard Leitar (and the Marpa Center for Business and Economics at Naropa U. in Colorado), easily access English literature and be able to bounce ideas and discuss in English.

I also need to look into the possibility of having the ligament in my knee repaired. When I was in Uganda last year, I tore the ACL in my right knee and it needs to be repaired. There is no one here in Thailand who does the surgery. I don't have a clue as to the cost or where I can get the money to do the surgery but I need to do something because it is crippling me. I have discovered here in Thailand that life is lots of interrelated spirals and my health spiral includes bone spurs in my heals, the bad knee, the opposite hip, an injured rotator cuff, my weight and high blood pressure. And one changes and it affects all of the other ones. I need to get this taken care of because my way of dealing with it all for the last year has been to meditation and control the pain. In the meditation retreat we did this week with the students, my concentration got diverted from dealing with that pain and I discovered how much effort I have been expending pushing this pain away. I want that energy (and the years it has to be taking from my life) back.

So, Bronwen and I will finish up the work with Buddhism, meditation, ethics and sustainable business this week and she will be returning to England and then I just have to finish out the semester and settle down to getting the "newly reborn" conference back on track. Two or three of us are talking about using the papers from the conference to write a more accessible book on mindful economics.

OK. Off to do some work after 24 hours of forced bed rest for the knee.

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Editing

A quick note to explain my absence.

Last week I was "dubbed" to edit Aj. Apichai's book on Buddhist Economics for its English publication. It is a huge task and needs to be done very quickly at an inopportune time (the new semester starts on the 3rd and the book needs to be done no later than the 7th. I only found out my teaching schedule for next semester yesterday and it is 20 contact hours a week of course I have never taught before!).

I am about 20% done and have found this particular job to be exhilarating. It is a challenge of my English, my knowledge of economics, philosophy, history, Christianity and Buddhism. I finished the long introductory first chapter that overviews and summarizes each chapter in the book yesterday and as I was reviewing it for print, I sat back knowing that I was the only person who could have done what I did in 5 days. It felt good.

OK...its 4:53 am here and I promised myself I would be editing by 5...tata

Last comment added: Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:53:57 PST

Teaching Ethics

Some of you know that I have been fighting a long term battle with cheating in my classes. It's not just me. All of the foreign teachers have had problems with it. And it's not just that the students only cheat in classes taught by foreigners. It is a complex cultural issue. In many ways, the children are taught to cheat from the day they are born.

Thailand is well known for her corruption and general lack of respect for intellectual property rights. Just about every computer in Thailand has a windows operating system but I would be surprised if there were more than 1% that were legitimate. They even sell fake certification stickers. DVDs are pirated, bribes are paid to every level of public official and much of it quite out in the open. In all of the current political turmoil in the country, cheating and vote buying is at the center. The people do not see the connection between the case where they are stopped by a police officer and pay him a bribe and the politician who wants to get elected paying a farmer for his vote.

Cheating is defined by wikipedia as

Cheating (also called gulling) is an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture, or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one's own interest, and often at the expense of others. Cheating implies the breaking of rules. The term "cheating" is less applicable to the breaking of laws, as illegal activities are referred to by specific legal terminology such as fraud or corruption. Cheating is a primordial economic act: getting more for less

In a culture where there is little value placed on creativity and ingenuity, advancement is dependent on position and getting the position is dependent on either a hierarchical advantage or cheating.

If you combine this with the normal competition of succeeding in University, regardless of what culture, and the fact that these students are studying in a second language that they are not good in, you might be able to start to appreciate the problem we are facing.

As we look to establish a program preparing undergraduates to deal in the area of international business we are challenged with the task of teaching them how to look at other cultures and the differences that exist. The task of preparing them to be able to interact with people who are different than they are and who work under different rules is important. There are countries that will not work in Thailand because of the corruption problems. When you are in a country where a bribe is considered a requirement and you are from a country that views that act as an indictable offense, there is a tension that arises. Our task is to prepare these students to work with international companies in a way that does not put the international businessman at risk.

Last year an Academic Misconduct Policy was written, evaluated and translated into Thai. At the beginning of this academic year, the faculty in our program were told that it was the driving policy. There were fliers distributed declaring the faculty a "cheat free zone". The students were all presented with the policy on the first day of class and it was explained and discussed.

To make a long story short, I have had a serious problem with students violating the Academic Misconduct Policy. And I have had problems with the Thai faculty members supporting the policy. I have promised to resign. I have had students ask me not to.

I have thought about all of it. I said that I would resign because I really didn't want to be associated with a faculty that did not support ethics. I still don't.

I want to see these young adults grow.

I was afraid that I was imposing a culture that was not theirs. I didn't really know how to proceed. So yesterday I went to visit Shikamat Jinda, my Buddhist nun friend at Srisa Asoke.

Results?

My ethical expectations are no different than hers. Christian - Buddhist, both find this behavior objectionable. We share the same desire to see the students rise above this aberration of their culture.

I did not feel comfortable with the "Academic Misconduct Policy" because it is negative. It is nothing but punishment of behavior. In this case it also happens to be quick, drastic punishment of behavior that they have for more than 15 years of their short lives been taught is acceptable.

I will be proposing to the International BBA program faculty a new approach.

The Mission, Vision and Philosophy of the faculty lifts up that we graduate students who have good business basics and are diligent, ethical and socially responsible. We have a way to evaluate academics. This year we instituted a way to evaluate diligence. There is really no current program for social responsibility or way to evaluate it. I will propose that we institute a recommendation of community service and a special certificate for a minimum participation in community service projects either those organized by the university or even better, ones that the students or program come up with on their own. Then, regarding the ethics....

The University and the Faculty academic affairs committee are willing to fail a student for cheating on an in-class exam. (That is the only think they consider cheating.) I say, OK. Work with that. Then, in addition, in our program, we continue to cite and document ethics violations. If the student goes a semester without an ethics violation, one of the violation citations disappears. Two semesters free of violations and 2 more disappear. Etc. At the end of their academic career, we look at their progress in all of the areas. In ethics, if there remain no or some minimal number of violations, we issue a citation that the student has demonstrated an understanding of ethical behavior....in some suitably dignified language. Then, we look at all four areas and one student is selected as the best over-all graduate weighing all areas. Maybe it won't be the student with the highest GPA. But it will be a huge honor. Maybe we can even find a sponsor for it who will provide an award.

I have already set in motion a class next semester in Buddhism for the first year students (the ones who are studying only English, remedial maths and study skills) so that they can at the get-go understand the basis for what we are trying to do. Following that with a course in their first academic year on business ethics and 3 consecutive semesters in "ethical" economics.... Maybe instead of axing students who just haven't had the opportunity to learn to be ethical, we can provide the opportunity and incentive for them to change.

Where we start in life isn't nearly as important as where we land up.

Last comment added: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:15:51 PDT