The week before Holy Week, we held the Mendoza Centenary Conference, part of the College’s celebration of its 100th anniversary in 2021 but postponed to this year due to COVID. The event was a great success in terms of the presentations, the attendance and the overall impact.

The theme — Growing the Good in Business for the Next 100 Years — is important for the College because it focuses our vision to the future. Through outstanding presentations by a renowned group of scholars, the attendees were challenged to think broadly and deeply about the power of ethical business to have a real impact on the human community.

Over the three-day event, we had a great turnout of 60 to 80 students, staff and faculty from across the University per individual sessions, which included presenters such as Charles Calomiris from the Finance Department at Columbia Business School, Sally Blount, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago and former dean of Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business, Dean Sandeep Mazumber from the business school of Baylor University, and Sanda Ojiambo, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations Global Compact. We also had strong participation from Notre Dame faculty, including Nick Berente and Mary Hirschfeld.

Through all of the discussions, which were quite lively and even provocative at times, there was a predominant message: There are real problems in the world that principled business people can help solve. 

This message certainly isn’t new for us at Mendoza; it’s part of the founding dean’s charge to promote a vision of business as “service to mankind” with the goal to “advance civilization” — in charity, solidarity and with an orientation to the universal destination of goods.

Yet hearing it from such an experienced group of leaders from organizations ranging from higher ed to the UN was inspirational on a new level. 

In his talk on maintaining spiritual values in the workplace, Dean Mazumber said as people who believe we are created in the image and likeness of God, we are in turn called upon to be creators. We need to ask ourselves as a faith-centered business school, how do we enable students to be co-creators with God for good in the world?

His remarks and those of other presenters were good reminders of our distinction as a business school guided by Catholic (and ‘c’atholic) principles -- where we are guided by Catholic social thought or by small “c” catholic values, i.e., universal human principles, such as respecting the dignity of each and every person and prioritizing solidarity and the “preferential option for the poor.” What struck me was that many of these other speakers from other institutions emphasized that a key strength of Notre Dame is our distinctive, Catholic mission. 

There are many people to thank for their tremendous effort in organizing and hosting the Centenary Conference, starting with Jim Otteson who spearheaded the event. Thanks also to presenters and moderators Mary Hirschfeld, Kristen Collett-Schmitt, Ann Tenbrunsel, Nick Berente and Father Ollie Williams. The conference organizing committee included Mary Hirschfeld, Craig Iffland, Jim Otteson, Greg Robson, John Sikorski and Father Ollie, who also offered blessings for the conference and meals along with Father Henry Stephan.

The team who so ably managed all the details included Crystal Boser, Tess Geishauer and Reilly Fangman.

My deep gratitude to those above and the faculty and staff members who attended.

In Notre Dame,

Martijn