Just two days in to the Spring 2013 semester, Bruce Weinstein, “The Ethics Guy”, joined Holy Cross students here on campus to run a workshop focused on ethical intelligence. Dr. Weinstein’s visit was co-sponsored by the COES Entrepreneurial Studies Program, the Economics department and the McFarland Center & Barrett Programming.
The workshop focused on an “Ethics Quiz” that he has created to help people gauge their ethical intelligence. Dr. Weinstein really got the room going as he asked questions out loud like, “If you saw someone cheating on an exam, and no one else did, what would you do?” or “If you’re riding in a car and the driver starts texting, do you tell them to stop? Say nothing? Or demand to get out of the vehicle?” Students were talking at their tables and then vocalizing a range of opinions on all the different questions, which created a lively conversation.
However, my favorite part was when Dr. Weinstein asked if anyone in the room feels under-appreciated. He said part of being ethically intelligent means thinking about our actions and “if they are caring”. Three students in the room admitted to feeling under-appreciated so Dr. Weinstein called them to the front of the room and had all the attendees give them a 1-minute standing ovation for being awesome!
Overall, it was a great workshop – lots of discussion and lots of active engagement. Hopefully a lot of what we talked about will come in to play later this winter when the Business Ethics Symposium gets underway here on campus.
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