PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND PRACTICES - COLUMN 178
Building safe, inclusive, and respectful spaces in the geosciences
“Building safe, inclusive, and respect- ful spaces in the geosciences” is the title of a Society of Economic Geologists webi- nar presented by Susan Lomas, founder of the Me Too Mining Association, www.
metoomining.com, and focusing on tools and strategies on allyship and bystander intervention so everyone can intervene safely when inappropriate behaviors happen to them or in their presence. When instances of harassment occur, the question arises, “What should I do?” to either the victim or bystanders. How does one step away from silence and into action? The first thing to remember is that the harasser is always responsible for the inappropriate behavior. Protests that “that wasn’t my intention” reflect an unwillingness to accept responsibil- ity for inappropriate behavior. Intended or not, you cannot fully apologize for or prevent future inappropriate behav- ior until the inappropriateness of the behavior is recognized and accepted as inappropriate. Intended or not, you did it full stop. Elimination of harassing behavior requires bystanders to became allies of the victim. This requires rec- ognition of the inappropriate behavior and then taking action. The webinar describes various strategies for taking action depending on the circumstances of the situation. This webinar is avail- able at
https://www.segweb.org/SEG/ Events/SEG/_Events/Webinar-Display-
Archive.aspx?EventKey=WEB012
GSA 2020 Annual Ethics Report
The Geological Society of America has published its 2020 Annual Ethics Report that can be found at
www.geosociety. org/ethics. GSA launched its Ethical Guidelines for Publishing in 2003, its Events Code of Conduct in 2016 that covers behavior at GSA meetings, and its Member Code of Ethics in 2019. The Annual Ethics Report provides GSA members and the public with information about the number of complaints received, the general categories of the complaints and their resolutions. Fifteen complaints were received since 2017 resulted in the following outcomes: 7 violations, 4 dismissals due to insufficient proof of violation, 2 complaints were withdrawn, and 2 complaints remain pending. GSA’s numerical experience with its ethics provisions are consistent with the experiences of other geoscience
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organizations; see Bonham, Oliver, Abbott, David, and Waltho, Andrew, 2017, An international review of disciplinary measures in geoscience—both procedures and actions: Geoscience Canada, v. 44, p. 181-190,
https://doi.org/10.12789/ geoscanj.2017.44.126. The difference between GSA’s experience and those reported by Bonham, et al., is that most of GSA’s complaints alleged instances of discrimination or harassment. This may reflect the fact that GSA’s Events Code of Conduct has been in force the longest and that discrimination or harassment issues are a main focus of this Code.
New Oregon Continuing Education Requirements
The Oregon State Board of Geologist Examiners adopted new continuing education rules for its Registered Geologists and Certified Engineering Geologists effective 1/1/21, www.
oregon.gov/osbge/Resgistration/Pages/ Continuing-Education.aspx. The annual continuing education requirement is 8 hours per renewal year. Up to 8 additional hours may be carried over to the following renewal year. A wide range of continuing education activities are permitted including: academic courses; CEU credits; field trips; professional seminars, meetings, and panels; professional presentations; authoring; and service to a professional society committee or as a society officer. However, a log of one’s continuing education activities should be maintained and example logs are available for download. Specific instructions on continuing education activities are available at https://secure.
sos.state.or.us/oard/viewSingleRule. action?ruleVrsnRsn=270681.
The new Oregon continuing education requirements are similar to the requirements of other states but are significantly less than those of mining-oriented groups like MMSA, the Canadian Provincial licensing boards, AusIMM, etc. that can require a yearly average of 50 CPD hours (150 hours of CPD over a 3-year period) and a professional ethics requirement. My thanks to Doug Bartlett, CPG-8433, for sending me the OSBGE’s announcement of these new rules.
Ethics questions #5—what do you think?
Three slightly different money-raising efforts are presented below. Are they ethically the same or different? What is your opinion about them? If there are
differences, explain them. Please send me your thoughts.
Situation 1: an AIPG student chapter wants to raise money by selling geologically related t-shirts. It has asked its Section’s ExCom for permission to solicit Section members by sending an email to members and by placing an ad in the Section’s newsletter.
Situation 2: a senior Section officer has published a book on a geologic aspect of the Section’s state that is intended to have a broad audience. The senior Section officer will receive the profits from the sale of the book. The Section officer has asked the Section’s ExCom for permission to solicit Section members by sending an email to members and by placing an ad in the Section’s newsletter.
Situation 3: an AIPG Section plans to raise money by assembling and selling a book of field trips within the Section’s state. The field trips book will include some field trips that the Section has published and other field trips published by others.
Geologic Ethics & Professional Practices is available on CD
AIPG provides a compilation of all writ- ings published on the topic of ethics in The Professional Geologist on CD. Copies are available for purchase: $25 for members, $35 for non-members, $15 for student members and $18 for non-member students, plus shipping and handling. To order go to
www.aipg.org.
The pe&p index.xls file is available at
www.aipg.org under “Ethics,” and the writ- ings are also available by downloading the electronic version of The Professional Geologist.
www.aipg.org
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