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U.Va. Students Win Business Ethics Competition 
April 19, 2000 -- The student team representing the University of Virginia returned victorious from Los Angeles, California after participating in this past weekend's intercollegiate business ethics case competition. The competition was part of the Business Ethics Fortnight sponsored by the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University. U.Va.'s team, composed of Neal Chaisson (Religious Studies, '00), Vanessa Roberts (Commerce, '01) and Maria Derrer (Economics, '01), placed first overall in the combined case competition and 10K "Run for the Bay". Moreover, the team ended up in a three-way tie for first place in the case competition, earning a runner-up award when only two out of 160 points decided the tiebreaker. Experienced marathon runner Maria Derrer placed second among all women in the 10K run. In addition to bringing home trophies for these three accomplishments, the students will split a total of $1,500 in prize money. The competition required the students to research and make a 30-minute presentation analyzing the financial, legal and ethical implications of a contemporary business decision or issue. After their presentation, the students took questions for 30 minutes from judges and other student competitors who challenged their assumptions and conclusions. The judges included business executives and academicians from across the country. The U.Va. students researched and prepared their own case, entitled "Vermiculite Mining in the Green Spring National Historic Landmark District: Another Dilemma for W. R. Grace & Co." The case involved business decisions made in 1992 that are the subject of antitrust litigation still pending in Charlottesville's federal district court. As part of their research, the students met with the parties to the litigation, the judge and expert witnesses, including U.Va. faculty members Charles Goetz of the School of Law and David Mills of the Department of Economics. The combination of a business ethics case competition and 10K run has been called "LA's Weirdest Biathlon," but it certainly expresses the values behind Mr. Jefferson's maxim: "A strong body makes the mind strong." Faculty advisor Timothy Read said, "We are extremely proud of U.Va.'s team and its success in this competition." "These students worked well and hard together to understand the kinds of difficult legal, financial and ethical issues that business people encounter every day," said Read. Each semester, the University's Department of Religious Studies and the McIntire School of Commerce offer as many as three sections of "Business Ethics" to undergraduate students exploring the critical relationships of business and ethics (COMM381/RELG229). These courses are taught by doctoral graduate students in the Darden Graduate School of Business and the Department of Religious Studies. This is the first year that students from U.Va. competed in this national event. They did so with the generous support of many friends, including a grant for the study of business ethics from Arthur Anderson & Co. to the McIntire School of Commerce. Support also was provided by a grant from the Richard D. Donchian Foundation of Greenwich, Conn. to the University's Working Group in Ethics, a coalition of faculty who teach and conduct research on practical ethics in a wide range of disciplines. Loyola's Center for Ethics and Business also provided support for travel expenses. |
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