Office of Public Relations
Missouri Baptist University
One College Park Drive
Saint Louis, Missouri 63141-8698
314.392.2307 / fax 314.392.2265
www.mobap.edu / pr@mobap.edu
For Immediate Release
RE: SIFE@MBU Sponsors Annual Ethics Forum
SIFE@MBU Sponsors Annual Ethics Forum
October 31, 2003
“If you can be bought, you can be sold,” warns Debra Shurn, CEO of Marketing Works, at the Ethics Forum at Missouri Baptist University. “In my business I have to come up with new ideas on the dime. Fortunately, I enjoy being able to go home and sleep at night, comfortable with my ethical choices.”
SIFE@MBU sponsored the Second Annual Ethics Forum as part of “Ethics Month” for SIFE students across the country. This year, due to faculty requests, SIFE@MBU expanded their ethics issues, including marketing, education, criminal justice, sports, and business. In addition to Shurn, panelists included Fred Crawford, chief officer of safety and security for the police academy; Dr. Gregory Comfort, chair of health and sports medicine at MBU; and Jim Garvin, and Dr. Dale Hamond.
Jim Garvin, senior accountant for Forest Park Hospital, gave insight on managing employees and budgets ethically. In management, not only do you need to make decisions ethically for yourself, but you need a system of checks and balances to ensure the employees under you are as well. His advice: “Let them know you are watching. If you leave a cookie on the table by a three year old boy and say, ‘Don’t eat the cookie,’ and then you walk away, in fifteen minutes, the cookie will be gone.”
Dr. Dale Hamond discussed that choosing a correct career path, and the motivation behind it, is also an issue of ethics. As assistant superintendent of human resources for the Hazelwood school district, when hiring educators, Hamond must evaluate if the teacher is teaching only because of their efficient teaching skills, or because they seek to improve the education of the children. Motivation for hiring—the strength of the potential employee versus political pressure—budget adjustments, and sales relations were ethical areas of his position.
Debra Shurn addressed vendor relations, employee relations, plagiarism, and ethical reporting under the market sector. “Colluding” and “greasing palms” in the sales industry and marketing controversial celebrities like Kolbe Bryant, called into question ethics that were highly debatable in her field.
Shurn can sleep at night knowing that with Marketing Works, she takes making the correct choice in ethics seriously. Jim Garvin agrees, “Don’t take it lightly. Take it seriously. People are watching you. Your reputation and what people see as a Christian is what they will evaluate.”
The Ethics Forum is held each year in the fall and is open to the public.
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Missouri Baptist University is a premier Christian university in Saint Louis, offering graduate and undergraduate studies in over thirty specialized fields and nine degrees. MBU's education and fine arts programs are nationally known in addition to business, religion, administration of justice, and more. MBU is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Missouri with an enrollment of over 4,500 students at five locations in the bi-state region — West County, Lincoln County, Jefferson County, Franklin County and the new Illinois extension at Lewis and Clark Community College.
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