Ethics becomes a priority

Published March 27, 2006 in the Blue Ridge Business Journal
By Dan Smith

The teaching of ethics in college classrooms poses a challenge of such epic proportion that it is often simply bypassed: how do you make it interesting? That was one of the issues facing Tom Loftus and Bill Hostetler when Sweet Briar College in Amherst County determined it would start a business program two years ago. The college has obviously solved its dilemma, since in those two years, business has surpassed the former most popular major on campus among juniors and seniors-psychology-by a 2-1 margin.

Hostetler and Loftus-a former corporate lawyer with degrees in economics and anthropology-looked at a number of different alternatives (including Loftus being a roving ethics guy, popping in on classes on a rotating basis) and settled on the idea that adding ethics lectures to what were already three-hour classes in specific disciplines was worth extra credit. Ethics became a premium that would lead to an honors class as the fourth hour. That was a hit. The structure also allowed the teaching to become less of a monotone with more student involvement, which Loftus and Hostetler found the students attacked with enthusiasm. Sweet Briar, a college for proper young Southern ladies ("Oh, you poor thing") for most of its history, has recast itself "to reflect life in the professions, not sitting at home," says Loftus. With that in mind, the college wanted to put its curriculum "in context of society" with business and engineering programs. Who better than an anthropologist and an international business professional to help mold it?

The Kemper Foundation and Carrington Family Trust in Lynchburg (Consolidated Shoe) helped finance the ethics component, says Loftus. "We wanted a hands-on program" and "as an anthropologist, I looked at the culture in business" in order to help students understand those cultures and adjust to them.

The staff didn't warm to this extra work, at least immediately. "I noticed a resistance" among faculty members who did not want to give up valuable class time to what was, to many of them, another discipline altogether. Some faculty members, he says, wanted to put in ethics instruction "as an afterthought" and others weren't even that interested. But the optional honors course sold ethics fully.

Hostetler, who had worked for Aramco in Saudi Arabia at one time, had taught ethics to a degree in the business certificate program, creating something of a foundation and giving the faculty a basic familiarity with the component. Loftus was recruited by Hostetler and they set their heads together to reach a solution.

Both men agree that a business major-especially-screams for ethics teaching and Loftus believes it is important as a part of just about anything taught in college because it instills a set of values in students. Those values, he says, go with them into the business world.

Loftus says the teaching of ethics should begin much earlier than college-he suggests elementary school-and insists "you can't teach it too early. The ethical questions you present are different, but this is an awareness of right and wrong."

And as we watch our elected representatives take bribes, our corporate leaders take perp walks, and our bottom-line business executives at all levels rationalizing ethical corner-cutting, "right and wrong" become a bit clearer.