Reference Publications

Corporate scandal as a teaching moment: business school aims to make ethics a flagship, not a fig leaf, of curriculum - Catholic Colleges And Universities - University of St. Thomas' College of Business

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 25, 2002 by Patricia Lefevere

"We are all so career-minded; our lives are alive with activity--acquiring, assessing, managing--where is there any room for stillness?" asked Naughton. But once students, many of whom have run to class, sit silently, they also appreciate its benefits. They report that in silence they are most receptive, most vulnerable and most true.

Naughton, who practices centering prayer and tries to attend Mass daily--or at least weekly on campus--hopes that after four or more years at St. Thomas, students will see that spirituality is a discipline. "It's the way you organize your life. It's realizing that God is always present."

Enron has given everyone at St. Thomas a chance to "rethink how we understand ourselves in this world and the institutions in which we live and work," Naughton said. To see corporate deceit and corruption through the eyes of faith means to confront the notion of personal and structural sin.

The two places where people most likely will save or lose their souls are within the family and on the job, Naughton said. "This will strike some as overly intrusive and more pious than necessary, yet, given the reality of personal and structural sin, a just organization is not the ordinary human condition.

"Rather," he said, "it's something that must be laboriously built." This occurs not only through markets, technology and skills, but through "the spiritual practices that challenge our market rationalizations, our economic structure and our organizational policies."

Enron and the other myriad examples of corporate deceit that have come to light this year could prompt a new appreciation and invocation of Catholic social thought on America's 235 Catholic campuses--163 of them with undergraduate and 93 with graduate programs in business. Naughton and a half dozen others with whom NCR spoke on both of St. Thomas' campuses hope that this will be the case.

But don't expect it to happen overnight, warned Robert Kennedy, professor of management and Catholic studies. St. Thomas will continue to hold breakfast meetings with local and business leaders (see Page 38), to provide forums for discussions in the parishes and especially to raise awareness among its students of ethical dilemmas that could await them in the workplace. After Enron, there's an appetite for something new, he said.

Related Web sites

John A. Ryan Institute for Catholic Social Thought www.stthomas.edu/cathstudies/cst

Georgetown Business Ethics institute www.msb.edu/prog/gbei

Net Impact www.net-impact.org

St. Olaf Catholic Church www.saintolaf.org

St. Thomas College of Business www.stthomas.edu/cob