EHS Student Leaders Learn Business Ethics at Rotary Workshop

An international athletic wear manufacturer is under fire for its less-than-ethical business decisions, and the corporation's top leadership must gather to guide the business out of its troubles.

That's the problem-solving scenario a group of hand-picked students faced on last week during an ethics workshop held Wednesday on Thomson Reuters' Eagan campus. Founded by the Eagan Rotary Club in 1994, the workshop is an annual event designed to teach young leaders about ethical behavior and decision-making, according to former EHS Principal and Rotary member Thomas Wilson.

“We think it’s a very logical and intelligent thing to take that whole genre of thinking about ethical behavior to the high school mind," Wilson said. “Every human being needs to spend some time thinking about how they fit into the world, what their behavior is like.”

Each year, the Rotarians—with help from EHS staff—select 27 "emerging leaders" from both the junior and senior classes at the high school, for a total of 54 students.

This year, those students were whisked away to a day-long ethics seminar given by Kenneth Goodpaster, the Koch Chair of Business Ethics at the University of St. Thomas. Goodpaster walks the group through a variety of ethical concepts and encourages students to find their own, real-life examples of ethical or unethical behavior, Wilson said.

In the afternoon, the students are broken into small, six-person groups, and must find a morally responsible answer to the problems facing "POGO"—a fictitious company caught using underpaid international laborers to make their product. The students, who assume the roles of CEO, Chief Financial Officer, Director of Marketing and other high-profile positions within the company, present their small-group solutions to the entire gathering.

The exercise tests the students' ethical judgment and quick thinking, Wilson said.

"You have to act under pressure, you have to get some results, you have to cope with the behavior of other team members," Wilson said. "It comes at them pretty hot and heavy."

Wilson hopes the students take the ethics lessons back to the high school, where they can apply them to help fellow students.

“We hope they walk away with a much better understanding of ethics and ethical behaviors at school at work and in a dating situation, or where ever they go, and that they have the courage to transfer that to other students around them," Wilson said.

The workshop resonated with Eagan High School juniors Laura Swenson and Jaya Ravichandran, who attended the event last Wednesday.

“That kind of made me think, do the ends always justify the means? Is it worth it to reach all your goals if you’re pushing people down on the way?" said Swenson, referring to a video on ethical behavior the students watched early on Wednesday.

"Our school does a really good job with the honor code and staying true to that and the integrity policy," said Ravichandran, who believes that older students need to take a stronger stance on ethical and unethical behavior at school.

"This really shows us how to be a good leaders and manuever through high school and how to guide our peers," Ravichandran added.