DeKALB | Eric Castellucci was one of several student employees who avoided ethics training repercussions.

Of the 8,400 NIU employees who completed online ethics training last fall, more than 600 people have been issued a packet in response to completing ethics training in 10 minutes or less, said Deborah Haliczer, director of Employee Relations and Ethics Training administrator in Human Resources.

Castellucci, a sophomore marketing major and student manager at Pizza Plus, said he was told by other students to use the suggested 30-minute completion time when taking the online test.

“A lot of people just went on Facebook, or did whatever they could to kill time,” he said. “We all just thought it was a blank threat to make sure you completed it.”

Samantha Menge, a senior history major and cashier at the University Bookstore, said she thought the first ethics training test was a good idea, but that it was also mostly common sense.

Kim Kirk, a junior sociology major and cashier at the DugOut in DuSable Hall, said she thinks ethics training, in general, is a good idea, but re-testing is not.

“If you get it right, you get it right,” Kirk said. “You shouldn’t have to go back and redo anything. But I guess they feel if it takes under a half hour, then you didn’t read things carefully.”

Kirk said she thinks the test would take at least a half hour to complete if you actually read everything and did not just click through each page quickly.

However, Haliczer said NIU and other universities argued that universities are filled with employees who read quickly, and that ethics training is primarily re-reading the same material online each year.

She said the state rejected both arguments.

Though the packets are addressed to “non-compliant employees,” Haliczer said NIU does not consider these individuals to be non-compliant because they completed the required training.

“It is stated in the Ethics Training module itself that you should spend adequate time, [but] they’ve never given us a specific time,” she said. “This was an after-the-fact statement.”

The deadline for the ethics training packets is Feb. 22. For more information on ethics training, call Deborah Haliczer at 753-6039.