Not everyone currently required to take the ethics test annual may actually need to.

Currently, 8,419 Northern Illinois University employees are required to take the state-mandated ethics training online course.

Not doing so could result in a wallet-breaking $5,000 fine.

This means every food service employee, every student employee, every faculty member teaching so much as one class, and every other person employed by NIU are required to take this online course every single year.

Isn’t this a little bit excessive, Illinois?

Many complaints received in years past were addressed in this year’s training, such as an improvement in the format to account for previous timing issues.
Generally, ethics training is not a bad idea. Ethics law is needed, and many state employees really should take this course at least once.

Some Illinois state employees probably should take the training every year as a reminder, such as those state employees who are actually working in the Illinois state government.

Most university employees, however, do not need the annual reminder.

“Bluntly, I think it’s a waste of time,” said Matthew Streb, department of political science director of undergraduate studies, “I could have been planning my classes, I could have been doing my research, I could have been doing a million other things that could have benefitted the university.”

Currently, no one at NIU has received the $5,000 fine.

“I want to keep it that way,” said Deborah Haliczer, human resource services director of employee relations, who works to get out information about the state mandated ethics training and help those who are having issues with the training.

A lot of the information on the test doesn’t apply to most university employees, Streb said. “I understand why the university is doing this – this isn’t the university’s fault we have to take the exam.”

Notification packets about ethics training have been distributed in addition to the e-mail notification about ethics training also sent out.

The fact of this training is, if someone really wants to act in an unethical manner, ethics training will not stop them. It will inform them of Illinois’ laws on ethics, and not do much more than that.

No one who otherwise would act unethically will act ethically as a result of this training.

“We just keep it open and do other things and just come back to it later,” said YK Wang, associate professor of political science, “I really doubt its effectiveness, it’s very straight-forward.”

For now, all state employees must comply simply because it’s the law, and that’s one of the only reasons many people seem to do so. The training needs to be relevant to occupation.

By next year, the number of state employees required to complete the training should be re-examined.

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