Bush rebuffed by business schools - Your Life - George W. Bush's call for ethics courses as part of business curriculums - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 2004

After the outrage over corporate scandals in 2002, Pres. George W. Bush asked for ethics coursework in American business schools. However, according to Diane Swanson, associate professor of management and von Waaden business administration professor at Kansas State University, Manhattan, he is getting a lukewarm response.

The White House issued press releases following the wrongdoings in which Bush called for business schools to be "principled teachers of right and wrong, and not surrender to moral confusion and relativism." With this said, however, only one-third of campuses offer ethics as a separate course, points out the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an accrediting agency and training source for business schools.

Swanson feels the statistic is outrageous. "I can't believe only a third of accredited schools just offer a course. All schools should be requiring it. I think it should shock the public given all the damage that has come from illegal and unethical corporate conduct. Students need a course to explain their future business responsibilities."

Even the top-ranked schools are not answering Bush's call to the best of their abilities. Swanson has been researching ethics in education with Tammy MacLean, assistant professor of management at Suffolk University, Boston, Mass., and Barrie Litzy, assistant professor at Pennsylvania State Great Valley, Melvern. Their audit of the nation's top business schools shows that, of the institutions polled, 23% require a business ethics course, 30% stipulate a class in which ethics is combined with another subject, and 46% only offer an elective, which equates to no requirement at all.