“Ethics Unwrapped,” a series of free ethics teaching videos, is being launched today by the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. The videos (and downloading instructions) may be viewed at the “Ethics Unwrapped” website.
“Ethics Unwrapped” is a project of the relatively new Business, Government and Society department at McCombs, formed as part of a renewed commitment to teaching business ethics at the university. The department focuses on the regulatory, political, legal and ethical environment of business and aims to help students cultivate the skills needed to successfully manage the dynamic business environment of the future.
“Today’s global marketplace is more competitive, more transparent, more culturally and politically diverse, and more fluid than ever before,” said Robert Prentice, interim department chair and head of the “Ethics Unwrapped” project. “Future business leaders will need to be able to navigate the legal, ethical and cultural demands of government and society.”
The videos available at today’s launch include a documentary featuring disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and more than a dozen animated shorts featuring ethics concepts, including those from one of the hottest areas in current ethics education behavioral ethics. Teaching notes are available for each video in the series, which is appropriate as continuing education for business leaders as well as students.
“Our goal is to provide a high quality and entertaining educational resource that anyone with access to the Internet may use,” said Prentice.
One of the most innovative aspects to the “Ethics Unwrapped” series is that its approach to its subject matter is both wise and humorous, which is an uncommon approach to ethics. Also, many of the videos incorporate University of Texas student experiences and opinions.
Cara Biasucci, director of the video series, said, “The student voice is one of the most important voices in our series. If we don’t know the sentiments of the people we are trying to teach, if we don’t know what students are thinking about ethics and what they’re feeling about the current state of affairs in the world today, then we’re missing part of the picture.”
In addition to the website, “Ethics Unwrapped” also has its own Twitter account and Facebook page. The series will continue with more videos to be released next year.
