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Pardon the cross-postings of these messages and inquiry.

1. I know that many schools, like Virginia Tech, bring in high profile guest speakers on business ethics.  One subgroup of these speakers that seem increasingly popular are ex-cons and we have had several speak here over the years.  This past week we hosted Mark Whitacre and he was by far the best speaker we have had in this odd category.  Mark was the high profile whistle-blower and embezzler at Archer Daniels Midland who was portrayed by Matt Damon in the movie "The Informant" (see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hxi-z3ZZBI).  There was also a Discovery Channel documentary about the case (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mSLAAwTFXA) that was much more serious than the comedic take on this case presented in "The Informant."  The students, faculty and other members of the university community who attended this talk were very impressed by his candor, remorse, and advice on how to avoid making the mistakes he made and I would highly recommend him as a speaker.  His own website is at this address: http://www.markwhitacre.com/index2.html

2. On a related note this talk was part of our annual "Ethics Week."  A few years ago I was working on an NSF grant to integrate ethics into the engineering curriculum with College of Engineering faculty as well as faculty from a few other colleges.  We decided as a way to get some synergy around the issue of ethics we would try to schedule several events including one in the College of Engineering, one in the Department of Philosophy, and our annual College of Business ethics talk during the same week and advertise it as "Ethics Week."  We have continued to do that and invite other faculty to spend some time considering ethical issues related to the subject matter of their teaching and research during this week.   Searching around the web I see that a number of other schools have been doing something similar to this.  I wanted to suggest this as a strategy for integrating ethics into the curriculum for those who had not yet heard about this.

3. Is anyone familiar with any cases dealing with ethical issues in the performing arts?  We have a new Arts Leadership program on campus and the director has asked my help in tracking down some ethics cases.

Thanks, Rich Wokutch

Richard E. Wokutch
Pamplin Professor of Management

Director of Undergraduate Programs

Department of Management (0233)
Pamplin Hall, Room 2007, Virginia Tech

880 West Campus Drive

Blacksburg, VA 24061 

wokutch@vt.edu

ph: (540) 231-5084
fax: (540) 231-3076