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Doing Business with the Community:
Business Ethics/Case Studies |
Assignments
Explore what the course covers by clicking the timeline above.
The course assignments include:
What is service learning?
Service learning is a type of experiential learning that engages students in service within the community as an integrated aspect of a course. Effective service learning structures opportunities for students to reflect on their service experience to gain a better understanding of course content and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility. Service learning engages students in active collaboration and inquiry-based learning experiences.
What is the difference between community service and service learning?
Service learning organizes service activity that meets identified community needs and has students reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of the course material and their experience. Service learning is curriculum-based community service that intends to teach students how to become responsive community citizens. It helps to mold the desired citizenship behavior, and creates opportunities for students to learn these roles and responsibilities through experience and reflection.
What are the objectives of the Community Consulting Team project in this course?
First, this project joins together a small number of students from different academic backgrounds. Each individual and team will assess their capabilities and interest. Student teams will then consult with a neighborhood business, working on projects that will assist the agencies and call upon students' managerial abilities. Students and the selected organization will work under the indirect supervision of the professor to accomplish tasks. Hopefully, this project along with others will continue and add to the tradition of community-campus partnership at Clark. Students, in collaboration with the organization that is to be assisted, will do the following:
- Establish formal commitment (letter of agreement)
- Outline needs and limitations of this partnership
- Agree on the goal(s) of the project
- Set desired outcomes
- Create a timeline
- Develop a forum for communication and exchange contact information
What are the benefits of service learning?
- To the community
- Provides substantial human resources to meet commercial and infrastructure needs of the neighborhood businesses
- Encourages the energy and enthusiasm of college students who will be tomorrow's volunteers and civic leaders
- Creates potential additional partnerships and collaboration with the campus
- To the student
- Develops civic responsibility through active community involvement
- Broadens perspectives on diversity issues and enhances critical thinking skills
- Improves interpersonal skills that are increasingly viewed as important in achieving success in professional and personal areas
- To the University
- Builds reciprocal partnerships with the local community
- Extends campus resources into the community and reinforces the value of the scholarship of engagement
- Enriches the teaching and learning process
What are the responsibilities of the client?
- Identify real need for assistance in your organization
- Orient & meet with students to facilitate partnership
- Establish contact person
- Structure service project
- Evaluate student performance
- Provide feedback to students and instructor
What are the responsibilities of the students?
- Participate in group meetings
- Meet with agency contact personnel/supervisor
- Learn about organization within the community
- Complete reflection exercises (journal)
- Provide a service
- Document progress and questions
- Describe project orally and in writing
- "The Jungle" writing assignment
Compose a letter, to either the government, the media, OR one of the meatpacking companies. In the letter you must do three things:
- describe several issues that you have found problematic
- explain why they are unethical
- make suggestions for change
This letter should be written from the perspective of any stakeholder in the case. You may choose a specific identity based on a character in the novel, or a broader identity informed by what you've learned. Imagination is less important than familiarity with the case and with the underlying ethical concerns.
- Ethics and the Zone of Discretion
Due: Midterm Paper
- Managing for Ethical Conduct: Lessons from Social Psychology
Choose one piece of advice that seems problematic to write about and discuss.
- Ethical Problems of the Organization
Be prepared to answer, "What happened at Enron?"
You will be assigned a primary stakeholder; be prepared to argue its interests.
- Corporate Responsibility: The Historical Perspective
Read: The Jungle
Write: Summary of assigned chapter from The Jungle. Include analysis of key quote.
- Corporate Social Responsibility: The Historical Perspective
Read: Finish The Jungle
Web Assignment: Visit The Corporate Responsibility Newswire Service,
www.csrwire.com and read a news article to summarize for the class
- Corporate Social Responsibility: Contemporary Issues in Depth
Read: Fast Food Nation Intro & Part I
Due: The Jungle, letter to stakeholder
- Corporate Social Responsibility: Contemporary Issues in Depth
Read: Fast Food Nation Part II,
Due: letter to the editor, #2
- Managing Multiple Stakeholders: Course Review
- Business Ethics: Synthesis and Application
- Follow-up exam
- Course Conclusion: Connecting Global and Local
Class presentations of community consulting projects.
- Due during reading days: Final service learning journals
- Due during exam week: Service learning project reports
Read excerpts from some of the student journals.
"In the final analysis, the real challenge of college, for students and faculty members alike, is empowering students to know that the world is far more complex than it first appears, and that they must make interpretive arguments and decision-judgments that entail real consequences for which they must take responsibility and from which they may not flee by disclaiming expertise."
The Challenge of Connecting Learning (Association of American Colleges, 1991, pp. 16-17)
For your final journal assignment you should read and reflect upon the above quote, then write at least four paragraphs about the way in which your community consulting project addressed the "real challenge" described in the quote. Specifically consider:
- The way in which your project taught you that "the world is far more complex than it first appears." Consider especially the managers and neighborhood you experienced.
- The "arguments and decision-judgments that entail real consequences" you encountered.
- The "expertise" you might have wished you could have "disclaimed" and how you resolved that issue. You may have been forced out of your comfort zone. How did you deal with it?
- Reread your first journal entry: what else have you learned?
Journal entries will be graded on completeness and depth with which you addressed the 4 items above. You should feel free to add additional reflections on the semester's experience with service learning.
- Due Wednesday May 5, 5pm CH 328: Final team grading assignment
- On a separate sheet of paper, put your name on the top, then list all your group members. Allocate 100 points among the OTHERS in your group. (Do not include yourself in the assessment.) Rank them based on contribution to the consulting project and teamwork process. Write one sentence about each ranking.
- Then grade yourself: what do you think team mates will give you (numeric score) and why? What went well for you? In what ways could you have improved?