Courtesy Photo
By Abigail Loop
Staff Writer
Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business is now offering more interactive seminars for the Baylor community and competitions for Baylor business students in the ninth annual Dale P. Jones Business Ethics Forum.
The forum, titled ‘Leading with Ethics”, started Tuesday and will continue until next Friday.
Students, faculty, alumni and business leaders will discuss ethics together, and will also have an interactive event opened to the public to join in on the forum and learn more about the business world.
According to the Ethics Resource Center, observed misconduct in the business world is down for the third report in a row and is now at a historic low, and the decline in misconduct is widespread.
Dr. Mitchell Neubert, the Hazel and Harry Chavanne Chair of Christian Ethics in Business, is a coordinator of the forum.
Neubert said the forum was created nine years ago for the purpose of allowing Baylor business students to learn, interact and compete with one another about major ethical issues occurring the business world today.
The forum features a variety of guest speakers, panels, luncheons and two important student competitions.
“In the competitions, the teams will analyze business ethics in certain cases for judges, who will be made up of business professionals, alumni and faculty,” Neubert said. “It’s really great to get alumni involved and also see the students compete.”
Neubert said the first student competition is today amongst Baylor teams with approximately 100 students are competing.
The teams will be put into different leagues, and the winner of each league will receive $1,000.
The second competition, the MBA National Case Competition, will take place next Friday on Baylor’s campus and bring teams from across the nation to compete.
“There will be one Baylor team competing against eleven other teams across the nation, one even coming from Canada for the second time,” Neubert said. “The winning team will receive a $5000 prize.”
While the competitions and luncheons are closed to the public, the forum will have two free seminars next week that are open to the Baylor community.
Jeff Reeter, a managing partner with Northwestern Mutual, will speak next Thursday and Phyliss Hendry, CEO of Lead Like Jesus, will host an interactive seminar on Friday.
Anne Grinols, assistant dean for faculty development and college initiatives, is another coordinator for the forum and said they are hoping to draw more people in by having more interactive seminars.
“Each year we try to make a variety of events appeal more to the students,” Grinols said. “This year is more interactive. It gives students a chance to see things outside the classroom and learn new things about the business world.”
Grinols said that Baylor has been teaching students with ethics for a long time as an important topic and the forum reflects this by what it offers.
“I find that learning comes best by actually experiencing,” he said.
