A Message from the Dean

The day was the culmination of extensive research, discussions, writing and decisions—work of our faculty, staff and students over many months.  These are principle we believe in and want to hold as the foundation of our academic and professional endeavors in the college and in our lives beyond the campus.

These standards, which began as a faculty initiative, reflect our belief that it is important not only to include ethics as a part of our classroom discussions, but also to develop a statement that we as a community can point to as our own.  Many, many stakeholders in the college participated in this dialogue—faculty, staff, students, administrators, and members of our College of Business Advisory Council. Our external stakeholders were particularly enthusiastic that we were making these expectations formal and visible.

All of us who have studied key trends in the business world in recent years certainly understand the importance of ethical conduct as a determinant of long-term success.  Here on campus in the past several weeks we have had additional reminders.  One was the comments made by J. D. Power during his Business Week keynote.  He attributed the success of his firm to its ability to maintain its integrity--so that consumers and those who read the rankings believed that they were done honestly and fairly.  Certainly the many companies advertising their JD Power rankings would not do so if anyone believed that they were not accurate and fair.

Earlier in March, the President and CEO of Dell Computers, Kevin Rollins, visited Illinois State.  (You may have seen him on the cover of Fortune magazine, posing with Michael Dell, after Dell Computers was chosen as the Most Admired Company in the Fortune poll.)  We had the opportunity to give him a tour of our building, including all the Dell computers in our labs, and then talked with him for a few minutes in our Executive Boardroom.  In that conversation, he said that Dell’s greatest challenge moving forward was establishing its ethical standards uniformly in all it plants and offices throughout the world.  He said that Dell spent more time and effort on assuring that the same standards and principles were adopted by every employee, whether located in Austin, Texas, China or India.  Setting those standards for how Dell conducts business and holding to them was the company’s highest priority.

Our College of Business Mission includes developing our students into ethical professionals. It is my hope that each member of the College of Business will adopt these standards as a way of thinking and behaving.  Think of what a wonderful place the College of Business will be when every member of our community adopts these standards as a guide for professional and personal behavior. The Preamble states:

The administration, faculty, staff and students in the College of Business at Illinois State University are committed to the principles of professional behavior and integrity.  As a community of scholars and business professionals, we strive to embody the characteristics of responsibility, honesty, respect and fairness in our professional and personal lives. Trust is achieved when all who are involved adhere to the principles of integrity.

I offer a special thank you to the members of the College of Business Constituent Satisfaction Team, who have led this initiative for the past several years.  In particular, as team leader, Dr. Linda Showers has devoted many hours to ensuring that we continued to progress toward final decisions. We owe her and all the members our sincere appreciation.

Dixie