Christian Witness & Professionalism.
Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don't feel like doing them. - Julius Erving
Ethical Behavior
A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world. - Albert Camus
Behaving ethically sounds easy enough in theory but in practice, it can be a very challenging. One scenario that we ran through in one of our masters’ classes helped me understand this. It dealt with corruption. Essentially, the question was whether or not it’s ok to give a small bribe to avoid a big delay when you’re trying to help people in need who are waiting on you. I opted for the simple solution; give the small bribe and go help the many people in need. This was the wrong answer, but it’s the one that so many hundreds of millions of people around the world accept on a daily basis. For the sake of convenience, they choose to perpetuate a system of extortion that undermines the rule of law. This exercise brought back memories from my time in Eastern Europe where I witnessed how corruption and extortion impacted society in many negative ways. Those memories and the exercises we practiced in class helped inform my personal code of ethics. I believe that the best way to combat corruption, aside from reforming the hearts of men and women, is through transparency – extreme financial transparency. I hope to one day create a real-time software system that can implement this extreme financial transparency system. As an undergrad, I wrote a paper about such a system and how it might be integrated into a real-time ERP system Called TiNGO-RT.x (Transparent International Non-Governmental Organization in Real-Time version x). I hope to one day get the chance to implement something like this in a company.
During my internship at Walla Walla University, I faced several ethical dilemmas. What I found is that when I did the “right thing”, it always paid off. Being open and honest with people who could be considered competitors turned out to be mutually beneficial.
Ethics in research is also very important. I learned this in detail from my CITI training. This training helped inform my Engineers Without Borders (EWB) research survey design and helped me obtain approval to conduct the survey study from Walla Walla University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB).
Development Values
My development values have evolved quite a bit from when I first became interested in development work – especially during my time as a student in the Masters of Global Community Development (MGCD) program though Southern Adventist University. I wrote a paper about how my philosophy of development has changed over the years. I’ve had the privilege of sharing this paper with Walla Walla University students and having them reflect on how their development values have also changed. Working as a graduate assistant in the Walla Walla University school of Engineering’s new Global Humanitarian Engineering Emphasis (GHEE) program has enabled me to delve into this subject deeper than I ever anticipated. They say the best way to learn is by teaching and I’ve learn a lot from teaching undergraduate students. Here are 3 items that were shared with the students in ENGR-390 (a GHEE core class) student before and during my guest lecture about the philosophy of development:
In the spring of 2016, I had the privilege of attending the EWB (Engineers Without Borders) International summit in Denver, Colorado. One of the main events at the summit was a screening of the film Poverty, Inc. This film has had a major impact on my development values and the lessons we learned from both the film and the debate that we witnessed after the screening has inspired multiple screenings of the film and debates here at Walla Walla University (WWU). I’ve led multiple public debates here at WWU with student teams in which I’ve defended the film’s thesis and also opposed the thesis of the film. These experiences have led me to think critically about both sides of the issue, which has helped me further refine my development philosophy.
These intellectual exercises along with the practical experience I’ve gained from doing frontline development work has given me greater confidence in myself and improved my problem-solving abilities. This has led me to enhance my mission statement to shoot for even broader career goals.
Integration of faith and Practice
The role of faith in the practice of development work has been greatly underestimated by the development community at large. As I outlined in my book report for Walking with the Poor, there is a “missing middle” perspective in Western society that leads to conflicting world views and can leave us disconnected us from indigenous communities. The spiritual dimension is an important aspect of development work that cannot be simply brushed aside. For truly holistic transformational development do occur, we must also cater to the spiritual needs of the community. I discussed this topic in a forum post in which other cohorts also helped me understand this issue better.
As a graduate assistant at Walla Walla University, I was asked to conduct a lecture about development philosophy in one of our Global Humanitarian Engineering Emphasis (GHEE) classes. I shared what I had learned from my Master’s program along with my personal testimony. Here is a journal entry with details from that experience along with the power point presentation I used. I further explained my personal testimony in a forum discussion post about how I interpret God’s permission of pain and suffering in the world through a mathematical expression that came to me (by divine inspiration I believe) during a particularly low point in my spiritual life.
Professional Decorum
Professional decorum is about more than just dressing well (although, I did that too). Professional decorum is also about maintaining your composure when every part of you wants to burst out in anger and righteous indignation. I have experienced some very frustrating moments in the field, especially when things don’t go as planned and sleep deprivation takes its toll. Although I haven’t always been successful at maintain my composure, there have been a few key moments I do take pride in. One such incident involved a careless motorcycle driver in East Africa. I was crossing a busy street in a small town when, unexpectedly, a motorcycle came flying towards me with horn blaring. The driver narrowly missed me and turned so hard that he ended up being thrown from his bike. At first I was upset at the driver for driving so fast through a busy market place and was tempted to give him an angry verbal barrage of insults. I decided to hold my tongue and instead to focus on making sure that he was ok and that his bike wasn’t too badly damaged. As it turns out, he was the nephew of the landlord at the house I was staying in. He suffered only minor cuts and a broken sandal. His motorcycle was also unharmed landing in the dirt. We were all able to laugh about the incident later but if I hadn’t maintained my composure that relationship could have been strained.
Throughout my internship at Walla Walla University I made sure to “dress for success.” - especially while having an audience every day during my Math 105 teaching experience. I also learned to respect people’s time and busy schedules by communicating professionally and efficiently through email rather than interrupting them in their office or while they were running to class. I also made it a point to ask colleagues about other people’s preferred communication styles, especially when meeting with key individuals who could help us achieve whatever objects we had for the academic programs I was helping with. I learned the value of listening before suggesting my often misguided ideas in meetings. Faculty and staff have commented that they appreciate my enthusiastic engagement during meetings.