What’s Morally Right? RIT’s Saunders Business College Hosts Ethics Contest Jan. 27

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A. Sue Weisler

RIT’s E. Philip Saunders College of Business is hosting an Xtranormal Ethics Contest from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 27, at Max Lowenthal Hall, room 1225.

“We want to see our students become more excellent at being human, and this contest is one small way to encourage this process.”

– Michael Palanski, RIT assistant professor of marketing

What’s the right thing to do? Rochester Institute of Technology students are ready to tackle ethical dilemmas faced by many businesses today: manufacturing-worker safety, pollution, and company management.

RIT’s E. Philip Saunders College of Business is hosting an Xtranormal Ethics Contest from 4 to 6 p.m. Jan. 27 at Max Lowenthal Hall, room 1225.

Eight participating student teams will have four minutes to showcase their vignette illustrations demonstrating the concepts of right and wrong. Top winners will win cash prizes.

The panelist judges are: Jim Nortz, compliance director at Bausch & Lomb; Kimm Proctor, regulatory compliance manager, ESL Federal Credit Union; and three Saunders College faculty members: Sandra Rothenberg, associate professor and director of the Institute for Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility; Robert Barbato, professor of management; and Michael Palanski, assistant professor of management.

“At a conference last year I asked an ethics and compliance officer from a major corporation what she looks for in new hires in terms of ethics,” Rothenberg explains. “She said that she focuses on candidates who can identify an ethical dilemma, a seemingly easy task that many business students fail at. We thought this would be a fun way to get students to think more critically about the nature of ethical dilemmas.”

Sponsors for the contest are the Institute for Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Graduate Management Association, and Lowenthal Service Group at RIT’s Saunders College of Business. For more information, contact Sandra Rothenberg at 585-475-6032 or srothenberg@saunders.rit.edu.