Shorter College hosting 2nd Annual Hopkins Institute for Business Ethics                       
 
March 12, 2010 - Dr. Andrew I. Cohen, associate professor of philosophy and director of the Jean Beer Blumenfeld Center for Ethics at Georgia State University, will be the featured speaker at Shorter College’s second annual Hopkins Institute for Business Ethics.

On March 25 at 11 a.m., Cohen will deliver a lecture that focuses on creating a culture of ethics. The lecture will be held inside Shorter’s Brookes Chapel and is free and open to the public. In his remarks, Cohen will consider what it means for there to be a culture of ethics, what form it can take in a business environment, and how and why it is important to express and promote ethical behavior among managers and employees. Cohen will discuss difficulties in applying the concept of culture and the challenges of cultural engineering in business contexts.

Cohen studied philosophy at the University of North Carolina and has taught at several schools throughout the southeast, including the University of South Carolina, Washington and Lee University, and UNC-Wilmington. Cohen is co-editor (with Christopher Wellman) of Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics (Blackwell, 2005), and his articles on topics such as rights theory, friendship, early modern philosophy and reparations have appeared in journals such as Philosophy and Public Affairs, Social Philosophy and Policy and The Journal of Social Philosophy. Cohen speaks widely to academic and lay audiences on themes in practical and professional ethics, ethical theory and political philosophy. In addition to the 11 a.m. lecture, Cohen will speak to Shorter business classes throughout the day. Cohen will also deliver a lecture during a dinner at 6:30 p.m. at the Coosa Country Club. For more information about the dinner, contact Crystal Stewart in Shorter’s Ledbetter College of Business at 706-290-7335. This annual lectureship is funded by the Hopkins Institute for Business Ethics. The Hopkins Institute was established in the fall of 2008 thanks to a generous gift from Shorter College Trustee Col. Harvard Hopkins and his wife.

 “A central lesson we want students to understand from these seminars and from all of our business ethics teaching is that it is possible to be ethical and successful at the same time,” said Dr. Robert “Dub” Darville, dean of Shorter’s Ledbetter College of Business. “This is a vital conversation to have with our students in these days after Enron, WorldCom, Tyco and moving forward to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. People are looking for individuals to be leaders who exhibit ethical decision-making, and Shorter, as a Christian institution, wants to be a voice promoting the importance of ethics instruction and practice.”

Founded in 1873, Shorter College is a Christian college committed to excellence in education. Since 2003, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Shorter among the South’s best baccalaureate colleges. The college offers traditional bachelor’s degrees in 48 major areas as well as undergraduate degree programs for working adults, the Master of Business Administration and the Master of Arts in Leadership. Online courses are also available. Shorter will transition to university status June 1, 2010. For more information, visit www.shorter.edu.

###