**3.3 Response to new public university cultures on students' retention through academic freedom**

Continuing students in HLIs represent group of students affirming the characters and behaviors named in a given university. They form a part of the university culture, which can be demonstrated in various arenas of universitas magistrorum et schorarium6 . It is ideal to think that a student has responded and complied with what has been resolved as the right course of action concerning the behaviors and characterization. Students pass through conflicting processes to reach a consensus about what is right and wrong. For example, in religious HLIs the faculty mentoring the "students

<sup>6</sup> Community of scholars and their masters

to explore the relationship between reason and faith try to shake the students up, encourage them to think for themselves, and push them out of their comfort zone" [13]. In the same way, instructors and mentors in psychology and philosophy, in particular, become the real agents of change in the emotional intelligence of the students in public HLIs in which the moderation is depending on individual virtues and social circumstances the students are playing around with. Such changes however are marked by controversial thinking and actions relative to initial beliefs and values. The quality of the change is influenced by the type and nature of the society in question, in this case, multiple interacting cultural grounds to hybridize. Giannou explains such changes in ancient Greece that justice, courage, moderation, and wisdom were the central aspects of a virtuous person, according to Socrates and Plato, and Aristotle held that a lack of virtues was a lack of happiness—the absolute evil [16]. This would mean that the students should focus on the course of action, which must cause or multiply the effect of happiness.

According to Aristotle, there is nothing good in its own right but everything is good in relation to something else such that wisdom and knowledge of something could be used both for good and bad purposes—the ends could justify the means. Implicitly, someone could regard the usefulness of a particular logic and action of the cultural syndrome based on the effect—whether it would result in happiness or guilty. The emphasis can be made that virtues could be reached only if students choose the right means, and if the choice of means is within their power [16]. One should have the right desire to do the right thing and in the right degree and should act promptly in that way. There are different perspectives concerning the powerful will of man to do the right thing. In Christian philosophy, for example, one ethical influence is that human willpower exceeds human logic.

Another influence is that the human mind is incapable of solving its own big problems of human ethical life but rather, God's authority is needed to guide humans to resolve such problems [16]. This is contravened by scientific logic and thinking by scientists, such as Einstein, on the other hand, posing that the human brain is so great that it can conquer even elements of nature. However, we hereby put forth that humans have a perfect will and ability to do good deeds, and the capacity to choose to do good or to be good. Though being good or bad seems to be rhetorical, it can be comprehended by a rational being in a given context. Informed students can develop a sense of moral obligations to do the right things, do things right, and be good. Imanuel Kant established a dual principle, the categorical imperative, which can explain indicators of ethical human activity; that always act so as to treat humanity whether in your own person or in that of others as an end and not as a means and act only on that maxim that you can make a universal law [16]. With the explanatory framework of the implications, Kant emphasized the autonomy and freedom to choose and act in a manner that can apply good to everybody. It is with such theoretical arguments that students should develop a positive will to treat humanity, and act in ways that can apply in almost all situations universally. However, it seems that the reality of the conflicting values and beliefs in multicultural contexts is being ignored in this case. Can universities establish common standards upon which all cultures can comply and students depend on? The whole situation would be resolved legally to set the conditions of legal justice and injustices, which may not necessarily reflect the requirements of social justice for all students. The general situation would be the creation of the HLIs' environment with students challenged with the question of how to adjust to suit the education systems in such institutions.

In fact, Girmay has identified primary barriers to students' adjustments in HLIs to include cultural, social, and academic exposures [18]. Cultural exposure imposes

#### *Perspective Chapter: University Entrants' Moral Ethics at Crossroads – Students' Behavioral... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.109506*

barriers to students based on religion, orientation, and collective cultural issues. Within HLIs, students engage in networks of social interactions with diverse groups, including culturally similar and different peers, students' organizations, and associations. With social barriers, students may face problems of isolation, microaggressions, misperceptions, and prejudice [14, 18]. Some behavioral demonstrations and characterizations exposing students to stigma and neglect may lead the victims to withdrawal consequences from social engagements, a situation related to failure to adapt to the cultural ingredients of mixed sociocultural groups. The question of "whose values anyway" is the best to adapt and adopt remains paramount [13], which the legal prohibitions have inclined on resolving for a long time. Students become witnesses of acceptance and rejection of values and standards derived from interactions across cultures. The academic barriers include rigor, language, and structure used in academic communication [18]. Like the case that has been presented in universities in Russia, foreign students are influenced by subjective and objective factors to adapt to HLIs, in a process of mastering new cultural contexts and values of the new sociocultural environment [19].

However, the degrees with which students from historically disadvantaged social groups interact with their counterparts go on insufficiency below expectations as they exhibit less affiliation to the university cultures [11]. Despite their globalization desire to access better education, there are factors that alienate international students. Such students may be under social, cultural, and economic dominations imposing on them a situation of reduced efficacy to engagements which the emancipation processes may take long to post-training period in their future [20]. To resolve such challenges, deliberate initiatives are to be instituted in HLIs to recognize the need to develop such disadvantaged groups holistically in inclusive interactive approaches. The recommendation to mitigate such barriers is to have effective intercultural adaptation and management beyond interpersonal communications, where a college as an organism is vigorously working together to realize the process of an intercultural management system [20]. Cross also identified a triangular system linking lecturers, students, and institutions in resolving the relative values and ethical standards in conflicts in order to nurture the students' potentials [11]. Accordingly, the actor, in this case, the student, should be brought into the system and the system unto the actor according to a process of interiorization of norms and values by the individuals. This thinking recognizes students as the central agents of change, and the HLIs as a source of capacity to offer adequate remedies to the students. In fact, students prefer guidance through adjustment difficulties and social counseling to wage positive improvements and achieve total change [21]. Nonetheless, one would comment that the mechanisms through which the students respond to the experiential changes in cultures in the HLIs vary depending on the nature of students and the institutional capacity.
