Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business has revamped its MBA curriculum and has made ethics a focal point of its first-year curriculum.
A press release about the changes states that
As part of the opening term, students will kick off their MBA experience with a course focused on ethical principles…. Through the Ethical Leadership course, students participate in the “Ethics Project” – an open-ended, year-long group project with a simple prompt to think of something good to do, and do it.
The “Ethics Project” was originally developed by philosopher Jason Brennan, a professor at the McDonough School, for his business ethics course. Here’s a description of it:
To bring their ideas to life, student groups receive $1,000 in funding from private foundations and alumni, as well as what Brennan calls “radical freedom and radical responsibility for their actions.” There are few rules, but one must-do? Create something that provides good to whatever community they’re trying to serve.
In 2021, Brennan received a grant to expand the idea to the entire MBA class for a three-year period. What was then an experiment has now become part of the official curriculum.
While the curricular change is noteworthy, so is the fact that the school decided it would be good marketing to announce it. If this is a signal that ethics is good for business, that may mean more opportunities for philosophers and philosophy departments.
Related: Free Business Ethics Course Materials.
This is certainly a good sign.
I’d like to see more though. I’d like to see more apprenticeship in ethics and leadership. It’s not something you can just read about or learn by inventing an interesting project to put on your resume.
People need to be put in difficult situations where they have to sacrifice something self-serving for the greater good. I don’t have any ideas about how you get that into an MBA curriculum, I’m just saying we need something more if we want to create ethical business leaders.
Thanks for running this!
Some interesting context that is a good sign, I think: After we had the initial grant, our dean on his own, without any request or prompting from us, went out and got a permanent endowment for the Ethics Project from the Clark Foundation (https://clarkfoundationdc.org/). We also continue to receive alumni support.
Congrats to my former colleagues at Georgetown! I hope this reflects real changes in the business school curriculum, and is not just a marketing strategy.
That was a legitimate worry, not due to calculated malfeasance, but due to some of our more conservative colleagues wanting to put training wheels on the project to the point of making it worthless. Hasnas, who is one the MBA committee, made sure that didn’t happen. Instead, new MBAs will start on the Ethics Project in August and deliver it in May, getting a year of coaching with high expectations.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been doing this in our Dubai program. Two years, one group raised $300,000 for charity, and last year, one did…$9.7 million. (Yes, million.)
That’s awesome; congrats, Jason et al.!