A New Resource for Samford!

INSIGHTS in Ethics and Leadership is a new publication for faculty and others at Samford University. Published by the Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership, it summarizes new trends, publications and research, focusing particularly on issues in applied disciplines and professional practice.

The Mann Center was launched this fall as a resource for the Samford community, offering services to support teaching, scholarship and co-curricular programs. Based in the Brock School of Business, the university-wide center was made possible through a generous grant from Samford alumnus Marvin Mann. Its name honors the memory of his late wife Frances Marlin Mann.

Center, University Library Collaborate to Develop Online Resource Center

The Mann Center and Samford's University Library have teamed up to develop a unique Web resource for those interested in Ethics and Ethical Leadership. These pages feature books, articles, teaching resources (e.g., simulations and videos), and other sources to support scholarship and teaching. They also provide access to selected online resources in specific academic disciplines and subject areas, such as business, nursing, environmental sustainability, law and bioethics.

This resource center is under development, but an early version is now online. It will be continuously updated and expanded over time, supported by a growing collection of library holdings. Your suggestions for content are welcome!

News and Views

For the seventh straight year, Americans consider nurses the most ethical of all professionals. In Gallup's annual Honesty and Ethics of Professions survey, eighty-four percent of respondents rate the honesty and ethical standards of nurses as either "high" or "very high." Meanwhile, public respect for bankers fell significantly in the wake of the current financial crisis and the ethical failures that precipitated it.

Regardless of how they voted in the recent presidential election, more than 80 percent of Americans agree that the federal government lacks ethical leadership. In a recent Harris Poll, three-fifths of adults and teenagers say most political leaders are dishonest, with a majority believing most politicians would accept a bribe if offered one -- a perception likely to be reinforced by recent news involving such figures as the governor of Illinois, the senior U.S. senator from Alaska and the mayor of Birmingham. Other studies indicate that trust in political leaders worldwide has been declining steadily for several years.

"Are We Safe Yet?" was the theme of the annual conference on moral leadership at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. This year's program considered the global threat posed by nuclear weapons. Transcripts and webcasts from the conference are available online.

Will the economic downturn prompt more ethical misconduct in business? Possibly. In a national survey of 300 CEOs of large companies, conducted this year by Mann Center Director John Knapp and Clemson University's Daniel Wueste, a majority agreed that executives are more likely to make ethical compromises in times of economic difficulty. Click for a snapshot chart.

Google, Campbell Soup and Johnson & Johnson are perceived by the public to be the most socially responsible companies, according to the 2008 Corporate Social Responsibility Index by Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship and the Reputation Institute. According to the principal researcher, "The U.S. findings show that corporate governance — ethics and transparency — are increasing in their importance to overall corporate reputation.”

University Leaders in Southern Africa Vow to "Fearlessly Confront" Moral Crisis in Society

“Higher Education must engage in the exhilarating business of giving moral and ethical leadership training," – Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, speaking at the Stellenbosch Seboka on Higher Education and Ethical Leadership, South Africa, 24 April 2008.

Corrupt leadership continues to plague much of sub-Saharan Africa, deepening the economic, social and political crises in a region where half the population subsists on less than one dollar a day. "In most African countries corruption is estimated to represent between 20 and 30 percent of the GDP," said UNECA's Okey Onyejekwe at last month's International Conference on Institutions, Culture and Corruption in Africa. "That is inconceivably large."

The global coalition Transparency International, which ranks many of this region's countries among the world's most corrupt, concludes in a recent report that efforts to alleviate poverty fail because "donors and governments still treat poverty and corruption as separate — rather than integral — components of the same strategy."

Yet against this discouraging backdrop, a hopeful initiative has emerged from a diverse group of university leaders who believe higher education can be a catalyst for change. Presidents, vice chancellors and other officials of 17 universities met in southern Africa last April for the Stellenbosch Seboka on Higher Education and Ethical Leadership (Seboka is a Sesotho word meaning "a gathering for a common cause"). Convened at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, the meeting was co-hosted and facilitated by Mann Center Director John Knapp, who was then director of a center at Georgia State University.

Among the Seboka leaders were Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, former South Africa Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson, and Ms. Frances Hesselbein, chair of the Leader-to-Leader Institute. The gathering culminated with a Declaration of Beliefs and Principles, unanimously adopted by the assembled leaders, which began with the affirmation, "Higher education is responsible for developing ethical and moral leaders for all sectors of society." Moreover, the group declared, "Higher education should fearlessly acknowledge and confront moral issues in society by articulating and publicly discussing them, and by deliberately addressing them as part of its teaching, research, community engagement, and administrative agenda."

Recognizing that this may be easier said than done, the Seboka called on all universities to "rethink and re-imagine traditional assumptions and approaches in all of its activities and disciplines." Click here to download the full Declaration of Beliefs and Principles.