News & Events

Colgate President Rebecca S. Chopp stands with (left to right) J. Richard “Dick” Munro ’57, former chairman and CEO of Time Inc. and Time Warner; Raymond W. Cross, president of Morrisville State College; and Jack Webb, chairman, president, and CEO of Alliance Financial Corp. (Photo by Timothy Sofranko)

Colleges such as Colgate and Morrisville State do an excellent job of providing budding entrepreneurs the skills, values, and moral compass to navigate the sometimes ethically confusing world of business today, according to President Rebecca S. Chopp.

But an equally important element that the schools offer, said Chopp, is a nurturing environment with intellectual challenges. 

“College is a setting where you can take intelligent risks and not fail on a huge level,” she explained. “At Colgate, there’s enormous emphasis on that kind of initiative — on doing something, on trying something — and that spills into every aspect of campus life.”

Chopp spoke last Thursday during a panel discussion titled “Ethics and Entrepreneurship in Upstate: Developing Responsible Leaders for the 21st Century.”

The event also featured Raymond W. Cross, president of Morrisville State; Catherine Ann Bertini, professor of practice in public administration at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University; J. Richard “Dick” Munro ’57, former chairman and CEO of Time Inc. and Time Warner; and Jack Webb, chairman, president, and CEO of Alliance Financial Corp.
 
More than 100 undergraduates, faculty, staff, and members of the community packed the Green Room in the Colgate Inn to hear the panelists explore a wide range of topics, including employer responsibility, accountability, philanthropy in the community, and business ethics.

Chopp and Cross kicked things off with a conversation that focused on higher education.

Chopp described the Partnership for Community Development and the Hamilton Initiative as examples of how the university fulfills something of a moral responsibility to give back to one of its most important partners: the region.

Likewise, Cross said Morrisville State has several initiatives that contribute to the local economy while enabling students to “start their own businesses, see profit and loss statements, and get their feet wet.”

He cited the school’s Equine Institute, which he said pre-trained 2006 Kentucky Derby contender Sharp Humor, and Nelson Farms, a small-scale food processing plant that develops recipes into marketable products.

The pair also delved into the concept of ethics.

Chopp described three main components: ethics of character, which define an individual as a person; ethics of choice, which affect the principles individuals advocate and the types of decisions they make; and ethics of community, which dictate to whom individuals are loyal or responsible.

Regardless of the specific definition, Cross stressed the importance of consulting an ethical roadmap while embarking on any kind of entrepreneurial endeavor: “I don’t think it’s possible to be successful in business and not be ethically rooted in some way.”

Next up were the panelists.

Webb spoke about philanthropy and community on the part of big corporations in central New York, and Munro explored a company’s responsibility to shareholders.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Bertini shared her experiences with ethics and entrepreneurship at a nonprofit agency.

In the audience was Eileen Kelly ’08, who said the event was “one of the most powerful” she has attended since she came to Colgate.

She said the Enron and WorldCom debacles had painted a negative picture of how corporations behave on a day-to-day basis.

“But I think hearing these people speak has really shed some light for me on the fact there are many people and companies out there who behave ethically,” said Kelly. “I realized that companies can operate in a way that is moral and ethical — and still make a profit.”

Ruth Hancock, of nearby Cazenovia, brought a different perspective to the table.

An employee of Syracuse China Co. in Lyncourt, where union workers have been striking for more than three weeks, Hancock said she traveled to Hamilton in hopes of meeting people who espoused the same values she does.

She was surprised by Munro, who ranked a company’s responsibility to shareholders fourth in importance, behind obligations to its employees, then its customers, and then suppliers.

“This whole event just showed me that there is some hope for corporations today,” she said.

She said that the huge student turnout was another bright spot for her: “I have no doubt they’ll take something from this and use it in their own lives, when they go out into the working world.”