Sample Research Proposal On Policy Proposal: Cultures Of Education

Anthropologically, culture just refers to the sum totals of ways of living that a group of human beings built and transmit from one generation to another. In an institution of learning, culture can be cultivated or improved through continued training and education. Although the Arizona State University (ASU), as a whole, has continued to experience encouraging rankings in ethical aspects, the recent upsurge of misconducts like abundance of alcohol and crazy parting in the campus could tarnish its reputation. The University newspaper, the State Press, has expressed that although some students may prefer to identify themselves with the college or campus from where they learn, instead of the whole university, the reputation of the latter will obviously overcrowd the reputation of individual campus or school. With such generazability, nobody will be willing to attend schools with horrifying cultures, however, brilliant they may seem. Ethical issues can also be correlated with academic performances. Although some schools, as individuals, are performing better, the performance of ASU as a whole institution is not being reflected or boosted by such schools significantly. Therefore, this paper proposes that among additional cultures, like sustainability, Maroon and Gold, Mascot and Spirit Squad and Victory Bell, the University modify its cultures concerning ethics and research, and hence innovation and invention.

Policy on Cultural Ethics

Currently, the ASU’s level of ethics adherence, comparable with other fraternities, is not badly off.
However, the increasing cases of violence, drunkenness and negligence among students, especially those at Tempe Campus, are garnering to the national level. It will be possible that if such cultures are allowed to flourish they may harm even the reputation of the whole institution.
Despite the consequences of such problems at the ASU, the learners are likely to carry them over to their workplaces. Schools in the University should require their students to take mandatory courses on professional responsibility, ethics or corporate social responsibility. Ethical concepts, and hence codes of conduct should be integrated in non-ethical classes like in accounting and management, or even sciences. Otherwise, implementing a publicly sworn oath to honor codes of the university is also necessary. Although there may be some ethics classes being offered at the University, it has been noted that they are unlikely to result in the needed impact for learners to behave responsibly, inside and outside the class and beyond. Other than classes of ethics, extra-curriculum activities should also be integrated with ethics themes. This should begin right from undergraduate level to postgraduate level. If student social and extra-curriculum clubs and other similar organizations integrate elements of ethics in their charters, it will be even be more effective than what they learn in class. In this regard, the students will have long term commitments to ethics, which will enhance them to internalize it as part of their tradition. In this regard, they will not have problems like bullying, harassments, falsified reporting of business processes and activities or any other forms of corruption.

Policy on the Culture of Research

As already stated, although some individual campuses are performing better academically to the level of being recognized nationally, the ranking of ASU as a whole cannot be correlated to the ranking of its campus. As per the 2012 ranking, the University emerged in different positions, both nationally and internationally.
As for its campuses and schools, the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism has been placed among top 10 nationally for the last 10 years. The Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College has moved up to position 18, as regards graduate education. The Barrett, the Honor College, has been noted to produce more National Merit Scholars than others like Duke, MIT, Brown, Stanford or the University of California at Berkeley do. Nonetheless, the Carey Business School has become the only school in Arizona to be ranked among the top 30 nationally, while the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering has always been ranked among top 25 for its undergraduate programs. The Herberger School of Arts offers five different specialties that include music, art, dance, design and film. Therefore while exploring the cultures of Education, the study would like to propose to the management to modify its research and hence innovation and creativity policies to include recommendations that will be proposed. Those rankings indicate that although the University is endowed with some of the renowned schools in the nation, the overall performance of the institution seem to be lagging behind. According to most ranking institutions, research and therefore innovation and creativity are the major determinants of an institution’s academic prestige. Imperatively, academic cultures of this University should be modified to include combinations of right instruction formats and programs of research to produce innovators and inventors for most competitive labor forces. By this policy, the University should aim at placing itself among those that produce significant human resources in all fields of advanced research.
The University’s innovative and inventive culture should be depicted in every stakeholder. As promotion of its own ideas, it needs also to be employing non-traditional means such as internet video, face book and newsletters. All communications should be effective and efficient, as reflected by non-bureaucratic systems of management and learner-centered approaches. The researchers at the institution also need to be encouraged to involve in various partnerships and teamwork, using new and creative means. Further, the style of leadership in every department should be inspiring and motivating. However, the leaders and the institution as a whole should be open to criticisms, especially those that are made by external evaluators. The schools also need to have elaborate indicators of performance to make evaluation of its standards easier. Nonetheless, a good environment that ensures improvement and evaluation should be in place. The results of this policy will be reflected as the kind and level of research grants, publications, inventions, research grants, laboratories, international and national prizes, staff, graduate and post graduates and engagement in the faculty that ASU will experience. This proposal is implementable since the University ranks among top 20 universities in research spending. If the culture of ethics and innovation is cultivated and developed at the institution, students will have learning experiences that ensure development in all aspects: intellectual, social personal and ethical development. Apart from encouraging intellectual honesty, respects for others rights and openness to constructive change, they will ensure that one understands the benefits of such deeds.