Governing Board

Maricopa Values & Ethics Initiative

The leadership of the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) recognizes that the long-term success of the organization continues to depend in large part on the integrity of MCCCD employees and operations. The very nature of our services demands a special relationship of trust with our stakeholders - our students, employees, and the diverse public communities we strive to support.

Throughout 1997, the Maricopa Governing Board adopted and amended a series of values statements (Motions # 8626, 8627, 8672, 8673). By February 1999, a strategic conversation was called to order by then Board President Linda B. Rosenthal, who described the evening as "not an attempt to wordsmith the District's existing Statement of Values, but to discuss how we live those values, and how to strengthen them." This conversation, in part, stimulated the development of our Strategic Planning Initiative that continues today, and the ultimate involvement of each college in continuing the conversation among its own colleagues and students. Several colleges have maintained involvement in values exploration by working toward developing and/or refining individual college Values Statements. Additionally, other districtwide initiatives such as the Maricopa Integrated Risk Assessment as well as the Maricopa Values and Ethics Initiative currently include values appraisal at multiple levels across Maricopa.

In Spring 2000, staff responded to the Governing Board discussion related to Motion #8962: to continue development of a process for ongoing risk assessment and management in our daily operations, and ultimately throughout the entire Maricopa culture, and to also develop a districtwide code of ethics. The Maricopa Values and Ethics Initiative was officially launched. The Institute for Global Ethics (IGE) in Camden, Maine, under the direction of its president and CEO, Dr. Rushworth Kidder, subsequently entered into a contract to assist us in this work. A voluntary values survey was sent to all faculty and staff, and made available to randomly selected students, plus a random telephonic survey of the general public had been conducted. The survey helped identify the basic shared values of these various constituencies. Findings demonstrated deep commonality among the participants and confirmed not only a significant interest in teaching ethics and values on our campuses, but also indicated strong support for doing so among our public

The complete report of the findings from the multiple surveys, designed and analyzed by IGE with fieldwork carried out by O'Neil Associates of Tempe, is available below.

Maricopa Values & Ethics Survey
(requires Acrobat Reader*)

Maricopa Guiding Principles
(requires Acrobat Reader*)