A couple of years ago, Brian Porter, who became president of Scotiabank last year, sat down for a meeting with Management Dean Peggy Cunningham to discuss Dal’s Bold Ambitions campaign. (He’s the chair of the campaign’s Central Region effort.) Their talk quickly turned to business ethics.
“It doesn’t take much to pick up a paper today and read about some slip in ethics by some business entity; it’s far too prevalent,” recalled Porter. “We had a discussion about why leadership ethics aren’t more embedded in business programs in universities.”
Dal’s Rowe School of Business prides itself on a values-based education and on training students to manage with integrity. And its ethics programming received a big boost this week with the announcement of a $1.5 million gift from Scotiabank as part of the Bold Ambitions campaign.
Porter, a Dal alum himself (BComm’80), formally announced the gift last night at a customer reception as part of Scotiabank’s annual general meeting at the World Trade and Convention Centre in Halifax.
A national ethics initiative
The gift, made through the Scotiabank Bright Future philanthropic program and spread over 10 years, supports a new program called the Scotiabank Ethical Leadership Initiative. The program isn’t starting from scratch, though: it builds on the student-organized Dalhousie Business Ethics Case Competition, which has attracted competitors from across North America for the past nine years.
Now, with the support of Scotiabank, the case competition will expand into an annual conference each November called Ethics in Action. The case competition will now include MBA students, and the event also adds a national student video and essay contest. Perhaps most significantly, Ethics in Action will present a national award for corporate, non-profit and government leaders: the Scotiabank Ethical Leadership Award, judged by a panel of Canadian business leaders, academic experts and students.
“This program is not something just dreamt up by the bank and the Faculty,” said Dr. Cunningham at the announcement. “It is something that deeply embeds students in the creation of the activities, in the judging of the awards and the leadership of [the whole program]. It’s not just one ethics class: it becomes part of the fabric of their business education, and hopefully the fabric of their careers.”
MBA student Rebecca Rogez is the chair of Ethics in Action, which launched with its website and social media accounts this week. The conference planning is led by five student volunteers, who at the moment are ramping up efforts to attract students from across Canada and the United States.
“One of the reasons that I didn’t get into the business field from the get-go when I started school was because of the reputation surrounding business,” says Rogez, referring to the same scandals and shortcomings that Porter called attention to.
“I want to change that,” she adds. “I want to make sure business is good and great at the same time: not just doing great numbers but doing good at the same time. And I think that establishing ethics as a bottom line is key to doing that."
A long-standing relationship
Registration for the first Ethics in Action conference is now open at ethicsinaction.ca. Students can also sign up for the case completion as well as the video and essay competitions, and nominations are also open for the Scotiabank Ethical Leadership Award.
Dr. Cunningham encouraged members of the business community who attended the reception to nominate their deserving peers.
“It really saddens me when I read the front page of the papers and I hear all the bad things business is accused of doing,” said Dr. Cunningham. “So rarely do we hear of the ethical courage that many of our business leaders exhibit each and every day on the job, to make the tough decisions that really are the right decisions, just as Scotiabank has often exemplified. And that’s what this award is all about.”
The award itself is a beautiful piece: a one-of-a-kind design by Island Crystal’s Karl Haves, based out of Albert Bridge, Cape Breton. Hand-blown, the globe weighs 7.2 kg and showcases a compass rose, reflecting the Ethics in Action logo.
Speaking at the reception, Dal President Tom Traves noted the university's long relationship with Scotiabank: not only does the bank have a history of supporting Dal in its philantrophy, but the bank’s first ever branch office, opened in 1832, was actually located at Dalhousie College.
“The generosity of donors like Scotiabank enables us to make such a tremendous impact, not just in our own backyard but in the world beyond,” said Dr. Traves, celebrating the bank’s “generosity and exceptional desire to make a difference.”
This article is part of the Dalhousie Difference series, exploring what the power of philantrophy means to the university and introducing and showcasing some of the 50 innovative projects in development. Learn more at boldambitions.dal.ca.