Students Launch Ethics Day

Jenna Lenz, Paige Wade, Luke Farrell and Tina Wang, all IMAcc program seniors, wear their Ethics Day Ts.

The Accounting Student Ethics Board held the first Wisconsin School of Business Ethics Day on December 3. The Ethics Board is composed of approximately 30 seniors in the IMAcc program, and is dedicated to promoting ethics within the Accounting Department and the rest of the business school. As accounting students, we understand the important role ethics play in our daily lives and will play in our professional careers, and we wanted to spread this understanding to other students as well.

Ethics Day was created to increase awareness of ethics and the significance ethical decisions have on us and the people around us. We staged a “lost wallet” contest and offered a reward to anyone who turned in one of three fake wallets — two were returned! Ethical trivia facts were posted all over Grainger Hall, students received bookmarks with the Accounting Code of Conduct on them, a raffle was held for all students who wore their Ethics Day t-shirt to school, and the day ended with a short speaker series presented by Professor Brian Mayhew of the Wisconsin School of Business and Denis Collins of Edgewood College.

Over 500 t-shirts were distributed that were printed with our slogan: “Flex Your Ethical Muscle.” The more we practice making the right ethical decisions about small things in our daily lives, the easier it should be to make the right choice when faced with something larger. As Professor Terry Warfield put it, “If you don’t exercise your ethical muscle frequently, you will be weak at the very moment you need to be the strongest. “