I majored in Philosophy/English Lit back in the day, and I remember every ethics class being centered around moral relativism and "meta-ethics" (might be different in Christian colleges). Sometimes its just better to stick with the Ten Commandments. That is, let your yes be yes, and your no be no. (i.e. "If thou wilt not follow the ten commandments, then thou wilt be enslaved to the 10,000 commandments")
or something like that.
The purpose and goal of Bentham's Utilitarianism is to provide a guide for those in public office. If Ethical Theory class missed that, then the situation is easily remedied. Ten seconds of reflection and then we can move on and fix this country.