Dan:

         In St. Joe's professional MBA program, ethics is a separate 
3-credit course that's required. It's usually taught by Management faculty 
with a background in ethics or by business law faculty.

         Business Law is a 3-credit elective in the MBA program.

                         Bill

At 12:34 AM 10/8/2005, you wrote:
>ALSBers,
>
>I am interested in how many credits MBA programs around the nation devote 
>to ethics, and how often ethics (in a *substantial, explicit* way) is 
>combined with law, or another topic, in the same course.  Do any of you 
>have MBA programs where ethics is a separate course in the program?  If 
>ethics is a separate course, how many credits is assigned to it, and who 
>teaches it?  is it the business law faculty, or bus. law faculty plus 
>non-bus.law faculty, or only non-bus. law faculty, or ...?  Do the 
>philosophy department's faculty have any role to play in teaching ethics 
>in your MBA program?
>
>In our new MBA program, each of our courses is 2 credits, and meets at 
>night.  The classes meet for 8 weeks, for 3.25 hours (minus a 5-minute 
>break) per week (about 25.3 hours total).  Law and ethics are combined 
>into one required course (called Legal and Ethical Environment of 
>Business.).  There has arisen a disagreement among the MBA faculty as to 
>how much time should be devoted to law and how much to ethics in this 
>course.   We are not currently assessing legal skills, abilities or 
>knowledge in our current MBA program assessment scheme.  Some MBA faculty 
>have said AACSB does not require that law be assessed in an MBA program.
>
>I am concerned that law is getting a smaller role than it should have in 
>our MBA program and that that role may shrink even further.
>
>In addition to the questions above, I am wondering what role exactly does 
>AACSB think business law education should play in an MBA program?  is it 
>true that AACSB is more concerned about teaching MBA students ethics than 
>teaching them legal principles, skills of legal analysis, etc.?
>
>One of my colleagues, an extremely bright and reasonable person who has 
>published articles with legal aspects, said (if I understood correctly) 
>that if managers act ethically, they will automatically be acting 
>legally.  Therefore, teaching business students law was less important 
>than teaching them ethics (or at least I *think* this professor was 
>suggesting that conclusion).  What do you all think about those propositions?
>
>Thanks for any info you can provide.
>
>Dan Levin
>--
>Daniel A. Levin, JD, MBA
>Associate Professor of Business Law
>Minnesota State University, Mankato
>Dept. of Accounting & Business Law
>Morris Hall 150
>Mankato, MN 56001
>507.389.1827
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William J. McDevitt, Esq., J.D.
Chair & Associate Professor
Saint Joseph's University
Dept. of Management
5600 City Avenue
Phila., PA  19131-1395
Phone: 610/660-1634
    (Fax: 610/660-1229)
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