Lincoln (Neb) - Dec. 17, 1998 - Although most students come to college with their value systems in place, few have good understanding of those systems that will serve them in today's increasingly complex business world.
To give students a head start in gaining such an understanding, the College of Business Administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has instituted the Program in Business, Ethics and Society, an interdisciplinary program designed to stimulate discussion and study of applied ethical issues across the NU campus.
"The purpose is not to change students' value systems. What we're trying to do is prepare students to face the ethical dilemmas they are going to face in the real world," said Janice Lawrence, associate professor of accountancy and co-director of the program with Doug May, associate professor of management.
"If they analyze these in their college environment and understand the impact of ethical decisions, that might help them have a step up on the ladder of success in the business world. It's one thing to have a value system in abstract. It's another thing to actually apply it."
The pilot program - made possible by the generous support of James Stuart Sr. of Lincoln, will be implemented in stages over a three-year period. Components will include curriculum development at the graduate and undergraduate levels (both in stand-alone ethics courses and modules to incorporate into existing courses); ethics projects conducted by students and faculty; community outreach programs; an Ethics Resource Center; and a speaker and colloquium series.
"We're doing a lot of curriculum development right up front," May said. "We started this year with a university-wide honors course and a module in accounting (Accounting 201, required for all students entering CBA). Next year, we'll implement discipline-specific modules in the different departments in CBA. The year after that is when we're going to start supporting ethics-related research within a business context.
"One of our goals for the spring semester is to get everyone in the other colleges on campus who's interested in ethics together to discuss these issues. The goal of the program is to foster discussion of ethical issues. Most of our domain is in the area of business, but we want to get other colleges involved."
The program will reach out to the business community through its research projects, its outreach programs and the materials available in its resource center and on its World Wide Web site (http://www.cba.unl.edu/additional/BusEthSoc/speakers.html). It will also reach out to high school students through those resources and its speaker series.
Lawrence and May said, though, that they hope the biggest beneficiaries of the program will be the university's students - and in the long run the Nebraska business community.
"Teaching ethics in the classroom is all well and good, but
when the rubber hits the road, when the students are out in the
business world, that's when we're going to see the impact of the
program," Lawrence said. "Hopefully, the students we're working
with now will become the future leaders of Nebraska."
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