Integrated Learning-Living Communities
Business, Ethics and Environmental Sustainability
This integrated living-learning community includes classes and community activities to help students of all disciplines negotiate the ethical and environmental landscape in which modern business is conducted. All students in this ILLC are entitled to enroll in small sections of the two economics principles classes and participate in field trips and activities with other students who care keenly about business, ethics and environmental sustainability.
While only egregious ethical lapses and environmental abuses make headlines, every economic institution - global corporations, governments, markets, NGOs, small businesses - makes value-laden judgments in the course of providing private and public goods and services. Whether an organization pursues profit or some other objective, it competes for scarce resources and generates waste - exploiting the earth as a source and a sink. The American economist Wesley Clair Mitchell once argued that the only reason, the only excuse, for studying economics is to make the world a better place. This ILLC is dedicated to understanding how the private and public sectors can be complementary, both working to enhance the human habitat without doing detriment to the environment.
Students: Open to all students from all majors and units
ILLC Coordinator: Barbara Heroy John
ILLC Faculty: Barbara Heroy John
ECO 203 (Principles of Microeconomics) during the fall semester and ECO 204 (Principles of Macroeconomics) during the spring semester as well as (tuition-free) mini-courses (1 semester hour each) that speak to B.E.E.S. (Business Ethics and Environmental Sustainability) topics
- Bike trips, kayak/raft outings and field trips to local sites with historical and current impact on business and the environment, including tours of a native American archaeological site, regional historical parks, the Aviation Heritage National Park and Air Force museum, a local landfill, a sewage treatment plant, a recycling center, an organic farm, and the area's various metro-parks.
- Film showings and guest speakers from public and private organizations addressing ethical and environmental issues encountered in business. including an area beekeeper and a local organic farmer
- Introductions to the School of Business Administration (SBA) facilities such as the Hanley Sustainability Fund (a $100,000 portfolio that seeks to outperform the overall stock market while investing in “sustainable” companies), the Davis Center for Portfolio Management (also student-managed) and Flyer Enterprises (the student-run campus business) as well as student clubs with environmental agendas: The Sustainability Club and Re-volv (to raise funds for solar installations for non-profits)
- Joint events with complementary student organizations: SEE (Sustainable Energy and the Environment) students, Sustainability Club members, ETHOS, River Stewards and the Hanley Sustainability Institute
- Team and community building activities, as well as social events throughout the academic year
- Group study sessions, and academic planning and success workshops
