(Host) The economic crisis has forced leaders at business schools around the country to re-examine whether students are learning enough about ethics.
Starting this fall, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College will require every student to take ethics and leadership courses as part of the standard curriculum.
Paul Danos is dean of the Tuck School. He says ethics has been integrated into class work at Tuck and other schools for many years.
(Danos) "If you were to look at the top 30 schools, say in the world, I’d say, you compare it now to 20 years ago, there’s a lot more ethics being taught. There’s a lot more social responsibility issues, courses being taught."
(Host) But now, for the first time at Dartmouth, ethics studies will be mandatory.
Danos says the problem isn’t necessarily that business leaders are inherently less ethical than they were in the past.
But he says they face much more complex situations than ever before.
(Danos) "It’s not just a simple, don’t steal. … Some of the cases we’re looking at now are things that good people on both sides can disagree whether or not the decision had an ethical dimension. I think we have to bring people to a new level of awareness because of the complexity of the world.”
(Host) Danos says Dartmouth tries to help students build a system for making ethical decisions. That’s done by putting them in a situation that a business person might face and asking them to decide what they would do.