Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 14, 1994 TAG: 9404140066
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Nothing, you say?
Just ask Robin Reed, chief meteorologist for television station WDBJ, Channel 7 in Roanoke. After all, ski resorts and other businesses that depend onthe weather might try to influence his forecast.
Reed noted it was a hypothetical case, but it shows that even a weather forecaster can face ethical choices.
As a forecaster for an audience of 250,000 viewers nightly, Reed has to consider ethical issues and make sure there are no undue influences on his forecasting.
He told Roanoke County high school students on Wednesday that they are likely to be confronted with ethical dilemmas whatever their career or job.
Reed was the master of ceremonies for a workshop on ethical decision-making in the workplace and society.
The workshop was designed to help students increase their understanding of values and ethics and show them how to apply those ethics in their future jobs.
The Arnold R. Burton Technology Center helped sponsor the workshop, now in its second year, but junior and senior students from all of the county's high schools attended.
Monty Johnson, principal of the Arnold R. Burton Center, said the workshop was designed to help the students understand the relationship between values and ethics.
The six-hour program involved 125 students working in small groups, each group facilitated by a business or professional person from the community. The activities focused on the how and where of ethical decision making.
Each group was given a hypothetical ethical problem and asked to respond to it. The professions included architecture, accounting, advertising, banking, legal, medical and others.
"We know they will face dilemmas sometimes after they go into the adult world," Johnson said. "We hope this will help them to be better prepared when they have to make a choice."
Johnson said the students also learned more about role modelsin the profession or vocation they want to pursue.
The workshop also focused on a decision-making process to be followed when facing an ethical problem.
Josh Harth, a senior at Glenvar High School, said he found theprogram to be interesting and informative.
Harth, who wants to go into law enforcement work, said he believes the workshop will help him avoid making poor decisions.
Tim Carroll, another Glenvar senior, said the workshop will help him to better analyze situations where he must make an ethical decision.
Carroll said the workshop also enabled students from each of the county high schools to get to know each other.
Guidance counselors from Glenvar High helped the students tounderstand the differences between values, moral values, ethics and businesses ethics.
They said that the decisions in ethical dilemmas are difficult because the action is not clear and may violate one's ownconscience, an ethical principle, or be harmful to others.
by CNB