For those of us teaching ethics ...

Norman Hawker, Associate Professor
Haworth College of Business - FCL Dept.
Western Michigan University
1903 West Michigan Avenue
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008-5120


Begin forwarded message:

> From: [log in to unmask]
> Date: March 29, 2004 8:16:14 PM EST
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [IABS-L] Setting the record straight
> Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>
> The New York Times reported on Sunday, March 21, 2004, that although 
> the
> University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate Business School has 
> eliminated ethics
> from its full-time MBA program (which it did), "Professors are now 
> required to
> take a course in ethics training."  I want you to know that that claim 
> is false.
> It is not clear to me whether the school's dean was misrepresented by 
> the
> reporter, which can happen, or whether an inference was converted into 
> a
> supposed fact.  I have checked with key members of the school's 
> faculty to find
> out if they know of such a requirement or if they themselves have 
> received such
> training.  Here are a couple of direct quotes from people in position 
> to know:
> "I do not know of any such requirement or any such training or even any
> discussion of it."  Another faculty member who heads a key committee: 
>  "Nothing
> about that topic has been mentioned or discussed at any . . . committee
> meeting."  Yet another faculty member's individual comment:  "Nobody 
> has offered
> or required that I be 'trained' in ethics."  Similar remarks have been 
> gathered
> from other faculty members.  Nor have I heard any denial coming from 
> the School
> that the NYT report was erroneous.
>
> AACSB's continuing failure to require ethics as a condition of 
> accreditation
> allows business schools to manipulate the truth of what they are 
> doing, or not
> doing, about the ethics education of their students.  The profound
> misunderstanding of the purpose of business ethics education is 
> revealed in an
> accompanying quotation by a Katz School official:   "We decided  that 
> having a
> separate ethics class was a lot like telling students that they could 
> be bad
> during the week, but just had to go to church every Sunday."  Just how 
> this kind
> of foolishness addresses questions of corporate governance, stakeholder
> relations, corporate moral agency, the host of post-Enron regulations 
> issued by
> stock exchanges and federal and state regulatory agencies, and a raft 
> of
> corporate corruption cases currently grinding through the courts, is 
> not
> apparent.  A comprehensive business ethics course required of all 
> students would
> begin to provide some of the understanding students will need as 
> business
> practitioners.
>
> If you missed the NYT article, which was posted to some of these list 
> serves,
> the citation is Christopher Stewart, "A Question of Ethics: How to 
> Teach Them
> [sic]?", NYT, 3-21-04.
>
> Bill Frederick
> Katz Graduate School of Business
> University of Pittsburgh
> e-mail:   [log in to unmask]