Students create new business ethics organization on campus

October 23, 2006

Members of the Business Ethics Student Association

The newly created Business Ethics Student Association (BESA) at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater will hold its first meeting of the fall semester Tuesday, Oct. 24 at 5:15 p.m. in Carlson Hall.  Students of any major are welcome to attend.  Food will be provided.

BESA stems from the "Social Responsibility" management class offered at UW-Whitewater and is the first student ethics organization in the University of Wisconsin system. President Juan Carlos Perez believes that every university should have an organization like this and students need to be more aware of ethics.

The organization's mission is to promote good ethical practices, integrity and professional development through networking, critical thinking and exposure to a wide range of topics that concern societal ethics. Advisor and professor K. Praveen Parboteeah is "very impressed that students took the initiative to start an organization like this, since it's a lot of work on top of their course work."

Ethical issues are a big concern in today's society and BESA is going to focus on having real-life case studies throughout the semester that center on societal and ethical issues. "There is a growing need for ethics and peer ethics are one of the founding brick layers in today's society that will be better looked at in BESA," said Jenica Wyatt, secretary. 

The executive board members all believe that it's important for students to better know about ethical issues because they aren't discussed enough in school and being  a member of BESA will better ethically prepare students for their future careers. Pat Soderlund, College of Business and Economics Dean's Advisory Council representative, is very passionate about BESA and believes that this organization will give students a better learning opportunity besides their usual class work.

Jenny Menden, co-president said, "From a job perspective being involved in this organization will give students more to talk about in a job interview and BESA will give students a chance to see a different side of the business world. Societal ethics are normally only found in one chapter of a textbook and we really need to bring it to the front of our minds."

BESA will also have guest speakers from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and BadgerMeter to speak about different ethical issues and students will be able to learn more about business ethics from their different perspectives. BESA members will also work closely with the BBB to help with different projects. Angela Walseth, publicity, said, "These speakers will be able to better stress the importance of ethics and social responsibility."

BESA has seven executive board members that are all very passionate about this new organization and they all want to make ethics more aware on campus and through class. Jenna Harris, programming said, "Students will only be benefiting themselves by joining this organization because BESA will give good experience to prepare students for the working world since it can be a very intimidating place."

For more information about BESA, contact Perez at (608) 931-4776 or perezjc27@uww.edu.