Students at the College of Business Administration at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln continue to lead by example when it comes to practicing the ethics principles taught at the college. CBA students Aakriti Agrawal and Karanbir Hundal both competed as part of UNL’s Ethics Bowl team in Boulder, Colo.
 
Agrawal, a freshman actuarial science student from Pune, India, believes ethics is critical to her educational experience at CBA.
 
“I really loved signing the CBA ethics code, and it was a huge point of pride because as freshmen we signed it soon after we got here,” Agrawal said. “In our freshmen leadership course, we talked about ethics and I’ve also been exposed to it in Accounting 201. It comes up almost daily for me.”
 
The Ethics Bowl gave Agrawal a chance to compete against other students on a variety of topics such as medical marijuana.
 
“They not only asked about whether marijuana should be legalized medically, but they also gave us a specific country to analyze,” she said. “It takes a lot of preparation and world knowledge to be able to answer those questions.”
 
Hundal, who is a junior dual finance and actuarial science major from Kajang, Malaysia, said the UNL ethics team met every Sunday for two hours to prepare for the competition.
 
“The competition was wonderful because it brings up examples related to the world of business,” Hundal said. “One of my favorite ethics cases is about a family that owns a shipping company. What happens when the daughter goes to work for a rival company and the father tries to coerce her to give confidential information about his competitor? That is the type of ethical dilemma that could happen in real life.”
 
Hundal was happy with the efforts of the team and believes they will continue to improve.
 
“UNL had two teams and one of them made it all the way to the semifinals,” he said. “Our other team finished right behind them but lost to the eventual champion.”
 
CBA students can sign the student ethics code online at http://cba.unl.edu/ethicscode. There is also a new Ethics Box located in the first floor atrium outside of CBA 128, where students can submit ethical questions that come up in their daily life. The questions will be answered in a monthly ethics e-newsletter called Beyond the Bottom Line.
 
The Ethics Bowl team is sponsored in part by the CBA Business Ethics Program. Students who wish to compete in the Ethics Bowl should contact Dr. Steven Swarter at swartzer@unl.edu for more information. Published: March 6, 2013