Tuesday, May 22, 2012

May 2012: Day 1

Four hours is a long stretch to teach.  As I start my day-  when I first get up in the morning, as I'm having breakfast, while I get my materials together and leave the hotel, I face a certain dread.  "Dread" in this case is a sense that four hours is a marathon I can't survive.  But of course I've taught here enough times to   know there's a way to minimize this dread.  It's not really one enormous four hour stretch but three smaller segments with breaks in between.  This is how I try to organize my day in spirit and in pedagogy.

The plan for the first day was:

  • Part I- course introduction (keep it simple and brief, as always), corruption in Panama, the Global Corruption Perception Index, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
  • Part II- the Black Money video from "Frontline"
  • Part III- the U.N. Global Compact and one of my special "Pregunta del Días"
Part I   "Is Panama a corrupt country?"  The students generally said "yes".  Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of specifics, other than the usual (for me) like you always pay a police officer a little something ($10 is common) during a traffic stop.  Also government permits and licenses typically cost a little something extra for the bureaucrat in charge.  But there were no particularly surprising stories.  There was some ambivalence toward President Martinelli and his true motives to reduce corruption in Panama.  In all it seems like the rich and powerful will do what they can to stay rich and powerful.  I did get a sense from the that the poor are really disenfranchised. 

I also shared the Global Corruption Perception Index with them.  It's not a magic list or set of numbers; just a broad indication of perceived corruption.  They seemed interested and not particularly surprised by Panama's place.  I also pointed out the United States' position is not particularly envious; tied for 24th and behind Chile and Qatar.  My speculation is this as little to do with bribes per se than it is the corrupting role money plays in our election process and the lobbying access it affords.  

Part II  I planned on showing the video "Black Money" video which appeared on Frontline in 2009.  I introduce the video with a brief explanation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; what it prohibits (bribery by U.S persons of foreign government officials), what it requires (good accounting controls and disclosures), what is allows ("facilitating payments") and what it includes (U.S. subsidiaries of foreign businesses).  Black Money is especially interesting on this last point because it focuses on how BAE Systems (British Company) gets in trouble with the U.S. government.  

Well the internet didn't do us any favors and after about six or seven minutes it would stall.  So I asked the students to watch the video on their own time.  

Part III  Was mostly about the U.N. Global Compact.  I went online and showed them that several Panamanian businesses are Global Compact signors.  We then reviewed a powerpoint I have, "reasons for" and "reasons against" joining the Global Compact.  

Finally, the Pregunta del Día:  You dispatch cranes and similar equipment for a medium-sized, local company. Due to a recent powerful storm there is a strong demand for cranes to remove debris (e.g. fallen trees). Your company is currently telling clients there is a four to five day wait for a crane. 
A representative from a tree removal company tells you he needs a crane within twenty-four hours to help a very rich client He visits you personally to make an appeal and hands you an envelope with $400 cash. 

Will you take the cash? (NOTE: a few clients will wait an extra day as a result of this wealthy person moving to the front of the line).


May 2012: Starting a new session

Just finished my second day of the ten-meeting session.

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday, after the first session.  I came back to the hotel and had to finish work on my Towson classes.  This is an aspect of teaching here that's been especially challenging:  the scheduling.  The end of the semester at Towson overlaps some with the beginning of the session in Panama.  There is no time to do much planning for the Panama class, such as thinking about to present them material a little differently to a new culture and also a group of students whose first language is not English.  Also once I make a decision about what to include there's not a lot of time to post it on Blackboard and get the copies made.  (I have to be very nice to "Dieter" who does most of the copy work here at Quality Leadership University.  I usually email him something at the beginning of the day and ask for it as soon as it can do it.).  So I'm doing a certain amount of kvetching about how much there is to do, in such a short period of time, and all the competing interests (again, finishing my work at Towson).  But the Towson work is more or less over now (a few small issues still to tie up), so the spotlight returns to the task at hand.

As a general opening comment, I've been coming to Panama often enough that I expect a few rough spots in the beginning.  And actually that's not a knock against this culture or QLU, because the first few days of a semester at Towson can have their challenges.  I will give QLU its "props"; when I arrived about 10 minutes before 800am yesterday morning they had my room ready.  I'm in 302, a very nice room on par with anything in Stephens Hall.  The computer was on, the internet worked, and the overhead projector was fired up and ready to go.  Some other things took a little while.  We didn't get copies of the syllabus until about 900-930.  Some students were there that weren't on the roster (this is what I was really expecting).  Name cards were not ready (this is a small surprise, the previous sessions these were ready to go).  Course packets were not printed (no surprise there, I was getting these go between emails between the university and the small publisher I work with on Friday).  But these are small things really and don't stop the task at hand.


Thursday, May 3, 2012

Pardon the interruption

Three years later.  I'm getting ready to head back to Panama to teach Business Ethics again, this will be the fourth occasion.

I'm going to try to keep the blog going again.  It's valuable for reflection and keeping certain things fresh.

Also I've just returned from the Inaugural "International Ethics in Education Association" conference at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.  I presented some of my first thoughts on this topic and got some pretty good feedback.  So I'm resolved to go at it again.  I'll try to record some pre-departure thoughts on the class and my return to Panama over the next two weeks.

Of course this blog will have to compete with all the papers, miscellaneous grading and general end of semester craziness.