About the Center for Business Ethics


PURPOSE:

The Belmont Center for Business Ethics aspires to be a preeminent center for applied ethics In the Southeastern United States. It aims to create ethical business leaders for a better society. The Center:

  • provides a forum in which leaders of organizations can interact with one another to discuss key issues in the area of organizational integrity;
  • provides resources to facilitate the development of ethical standards of conduct;
  • provides practical educational orientation about concepts of organizational ethics and compliance processes.

HISTORY:

The Center for Business Ethics was founded in 1994 by Dr. Clifford Eubanks, who was then Dean of Belmont University's College of Business Administration, and Dr. Harry N. Hollis, current director of the Center. Working with Dr. William E. Troutt, who was then President of Belmont University, the James Medlin family had made possible the establishment of the Center with generous gifts to Belmont University to be used to support the teaching of Ethics to students at the university. Since Dr. James M. Clapper became the Dean of the Belmont College of Business Administration in 1997, he has made a strong commitment to enabling the Center to grow and become an effective resource for promoting responsible ethics in businesses and in the professions.

From the beginning, the Center for Business Ethics has focused on developing practical approaches to enable people to deal successfully with the tough ethical issues and decisions they face in the workplace. A major goal of the Center is to develop ethical leadership which will strengthen organizations as they seek to build and nurture ethical cultures.

The work of the Center has been greatly strengthened by gifts from The First Tennessee Foundation and by The Dorothy Cate and Thomas F. Frist Foundation. These gifts have been used to help put on conferences on such issues as health care, business ethics, sports ethics, and ethics in the music business. These gifts have also funded scholarships for students to attend conferences sponsored by the Center.