Business Ethics and Society Program Updates

The Business Ethics and Society Program (BESP) was created to add a new dimension to the business education offered in Mendoza. As the Carnegie Institute has noted, an ideal business education would help students integrate the technical know-how of business with the reflective and analytical habits of the humanities. In a rapidly changing world, the ability to contextualize and synthesize knowledge is necessary to deploy business expertise well.

Other institutions have moved to introduce humanities into their undergraduate business curricula. Our program aims to make a distinctive contribution to that project by drawing deeply on the Catholic heritage that sustains Notre Dame. We hope to contribute to Mendoza’s project of forming future business leaders who are genuinely capable of growing the good in business.

BESP is just in its second year, but our vision is coming into focus. This year, we launched our new minor, Business and the Common Good, developed under the leadership of our director of Undergraduate Studies, Dave O’Connor. Our incoming minors are enthusiastic about the opportunity to reflect on business from the perspective of the humanities, guided by faculty with the multidisciplinary background needed to facilitate a true integration of those reflections with a business education. We have just formed a Student Advisory Board to develop programming for students that will best address their needs.

The second focus of our new and evolving program has been to attract strong faculty to our program. We are especially pleased to have been able to hire Greg Robson as an associate research professor. Greg came to Notre Dame last year as a visiting professor. He is a philosopher who has published prodigiously, including many articles related to business ethics. In addition, he co-edited a book on technology ethics. His research embodies the interdisciplinary approach of our program, and his astonishing work ethic is inspiring. Beyond all of that, Greg has a strong commitment to the missions of Notre Dame, Mendoza and our program. We are very grateful to have him as a colleague.

We also formalized our affiliation with Jeff Burks of the Accountancy Department, who now has a concurrent appointment with BESP. Jeff teaches a course for us on Work and the Interior Life. He offers an invaluable resource both to students by giving them an example of how business education can benefit from engagement with the humanities, and to the BESP by offering us a connection to the more traditional disciplines within Mendoza. We look forward to announcing new additions to our faculty in the near future.

Finally, we have been working on building up our programming. The stand-out program is the International Business Fellows Programs, led by John Sikorski. In our first academic year, John offered a cohort of students 1.5 credit courses over both semesters on International Business that culminated in a two-week trip to Poland, where students were able to engage extensively with Polish business leaders. The students report that the trip was transformative for them, in large measure due to the intensity of the experience. They were able to see much of Poland, and more importantly, were able to experience Polish culture and business through the many contacts and events John arranged for them. The second cohort of International Business Fellows also will go to Poland, but we plan to extend the reach of the program in the coming years.

One immediate fruit of the program was gaining a speaker for the 2023 Berges Lecture Series — Tomasz Konik, the CEO-elect of Deloitte Central Europe who had met with the International Business Fellows during their trip to Poland. We also sponsored a fall 2023 Cahill Lecture given by Andrew Yuengert, an economist who spoke on practical wisdom and its relationship to Catholic Social Thought.

It has been exhilarating to be a part of launching our new and ambitious program. We have been gratified by the support of so many of the people here at Mendoza — especially Ann Tenbrunsel and Father Ollie Williams, who have offered generous service to our program through their work on our advisory board. We look forward over the coming years to building up our program and integrating it ever more closely with the amazing work being done in Mendoza.

Best regards,

Mary

Mary L. Hirschfeld
Academic Director of the Business Ethics and Society Program
John T. Ryan Jr. Associate Professor of Theology and Business Ethics