Darden to run ethics institute

Photo by John Harrington

Frank Raines,chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae, announces the Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics Jan. 14 in Washington, D.C., as Hank McKinnell, CEO of Pfizer, looks on. The Institute, based at the Darden School, will bring together CEOs and ethics professors to enhance corporate leaders’ ability to deal with ethical challenges.

Staff Report

With public confidence in American corporations shaken in recent years by the financial wrongdoings of several big-name companies, the Business Roundtable, a group of 150 leading chief executives, decided that something was needed to renew and enhance the link between ethical behavior and business practices. The members turned to U.Va.’s Darden Graduate School of Business Administration, with its strength in applied ethics, to create a new Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics.

The institute’s mission brings together the business and academic worlds to provide practical, hands-on training in ethical business practices to current and emerging business leaders. Full story.

Faculty Senate talks athletics, other business

By Matt Kelly

Director of Athletics Craig K. Littlepage assured the Faculty Senate Jan. 20 that he was moving his department toward a 100 percent graduation rate for athletes who complete their eligibility at U.Va.
Littlepage also said the athletic department wants to win championships, increase its endowment, build the highest-quality facilities, improve recruitment and meet all gender-equity requirements.

U.Va. student-athletes posted an 82 percent graduation rate in the recent National Collegiate Athletic Association survey, compared to the national average of 63 percent. Littlepage cautioned the faculty that the U.Va. rate was deceptive because the NCAA graduation rates are based solely on students who matriculate at a university, receive some form of grant or aid, remain for their entire four years at the same university and then graduate. Thus, athletes who start at U.Va., transfer to other schools in good academic standing and graduate from those institutions are counted as non-graduates in U.Va.’s graduation numbers. Full story.

First Lady of Virginia, Lisa Collis, a leader in public service

By Penny Chang and Anne Bromley

Lisa Collis admits that when she roused fellow students into action at U.Va., the results were sometimes dubious.

As an intramural captain in single-sex Bonnycastle dormitory in the mid-70s, she marched determinedly up and down the hall until she had raised a team for a swim meet early in the year. But when her team walked into Memorial Gym, primed to compete, they stopped short: they were the only women there.

“After that,” she concedes, “it was really hard for me to recruit them for anything.”

Since her husband, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, took office in January 2002, however, Collis — the first first lady of Virginia not to use her husband’s name — no longer has any trouble drawing people to events that interest her, especially causes that benefit children. Full story.