Nicole Renaux graduated from the Red McCombs School of Business in May 2010 and got a job at Black Star Co-op, a beer brewery and pub that is owned cooperatively by about 3,000 of its customers. At Black Star, the workers are organized democratically. For a reasonable fee, anybody can be an owner and run for the board of directors and participate in beer design meetings. The workers are split into four functional teams — beer, kitchen, business and pub — and they elect their team leaders and a board-staff liaison to keep the workers accountable to the board. Renaux says of her time in McCombs, “We were primed to work for Fortune 500s ... I had limited experience in small business education and nothing in democratic businesses.” She believes her education didn’t adequately prepare her for the job she currently holds.

Renaux would have liked to have learned the types of skills that are necessary to meet the challenges of a democratically managed workplace — for instance, practical instruction in how to deal with accountability and discipline when there is no explicitly designated manager. She is not alone in that wish. Many incoming students at campuses nationwide are demanding that more of their course work be dedicated to topics of moral and ethical import.

The McCombs School isn’t oblivious to changing trends. Robert Prentice, director of the Business Honors Program and a professor of business law and ethics says that he has seen an increasing number of “kids who want to make a difference, they want to make money to pursue their passion.” But currently, the school requires that less than one percent of the total coursework required for an undergraduate degree be dedicated to ethics. Worse, the little coursework that is necessary to satisfy this requirement has not been effective. “There is no strong correlation between character and ethical action or between philosophical background and ethical action,” said Prentice. Prentice had a hand in creating “Ethics Unwrapped,” a series of videos currently on the McCombs School’s website. The videos are based on the recently developed study of behavioral ethics and focus on how people make ethical decisions.

Because she works in a democratic workplace, Renaux says,  “You don’t just have to impress one person to get promoted; you have to impress all your co-workers.” When all your co-workers evaluate you and a different owner is walking through the door every few minutes, there is no place to hide.

After a year on the job Renaux was elected to be the board-staff liaison at Black Star Co-op. Despite the title, traditional roles do not necessarily apply: Owners are customers and contribute ideas for new brews; food service staff can be elected to managerial positions and interact with owners. In an “Ethics Unwrapped” video titled “Role Morality,” the narrator explains that people are willing to break their personal ethics codes as long as it fits with the role they play at work or in society. Renaux says that McCombs teaches particular roles, such as finance and marketing, which can stifle innovation in addition to acting in ways that may befit the role but harm the business.

Perhaps the most damaging role we are all expected to play is that of employee. Carlos Perez de Alejo is executive director of Cooperation Texas, based in Austin, where he instructs people  on how to start worker cooperatives. One of the biggest challenges he faces is teaching students to break out of the “employee” mentality, forgetting work the instant they punch out and submitting to authority. Once a person becomes an empowered “owner,” there is a spillover into communities, culture and society. Given the economic and societal benefits of democratic workplaces, McCombs should listen to students and integrate non-traditional business structures such as social enterprises, benefit corporations, nonprofits and cooperatives into its curricula.

Nill is an ecology, evolution and behavior senior from San Antonio.

Wednesday evening, an audience at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center was confronted with a rare dilemma. If the speaker is an ex-convict, do you clap when they take the stage?

Ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff was invited to UT to launch the McCombs School of Business’ “Ethics Unwrapped” speakers series, and spoke to audience members about the dilemmas of legality and morality in the lobbying industry in an event titled “You Don’t Know Jack”.

One of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington, D.C. during the presidency of George W. Bush, Abramoff served three and a half years in prison after a scandal involving Indian casino interests found him and 21 other White House officials guilty of corruption.

He now claims he is on a campaign to bring hard change to the lobbying industry after realizing in prison that a government allowing corruption to go unchallenged is a failure.

After some deliberation, UT officials decided paying Abramoff an estimated $10,000 was worth it if students could learn about the dark side of ethics, said Howard Prince, director of the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

“The first question I had when I was told we could have [Abramoff] come to campus, was ‘Why should we pay a failure to talk about moral failure,’” Prince said. “After some deliberation, we realized there could be value from learning from the mistakes of others, especially when the failure was from a man of considerable talent, like Mr. Abramoff.”

Abramoff, who is still on parole and cannot travel or make phone calls without approval, will not immediately receive the payment. A third party will monitor the fund, which is being paid for by sponsors in McCombs school, Deloitte Foundation and Bates Family Foundation, said business professor Robert Prentice.

Being questioned by Prentice and advertising professor Minette Drumwright, Abramoff engaged in a conversation about the difference between moral and legal problems in Washington.

“I used everything that was ‘legal’ to build a lobbying empire, and it was an empire on behalf of clients to support their product,” Abramoff said. “The problem was that I wasn’t judging what I was doing morally. I was judging it legally, and there was big difference.”

The only reason he was caught for corruption was due to his political battle with Senator John McCain, Abramoff said, who “dumped the emails” that led the exposure of his crimes.

Being cast out of Washington, D.C. didn’t solve the institutional practices that continue to intertwine money and politics, Abramoff said.

“So I got assassinated and sent off to prison, and they threw their hats in the air and said they had fixed the system and that the devil was cast out,” Abramoff said. “But they didn’t change anything, the system kept on going.”

Now writing for the Republic Report and asking for “effective reforms” that stop lobbyists from giving any contributions to public officials, Abramoff said he reflects on his own experiences as a lobbyist to craft his demands.

“They passed a law in Washington saying a lobbyist can’t legally go to dinner with a congressman,” Abramoff said. “Legally, a dinner counts as a sit down meal with cutlery. When I had a restaurant we would put in bar stools for meetings, so the meals counted as standing up. We need laws that close those loopholes.”

After a question and answer session, Prentice closed the event to an audience’s applause, asking them to reflect on their own failures and the lessons they had learned.

“I read three books on psychopaths before meeting Mr. Abramoff, and I was kind of hoping that when I met him I was going to meet my first psychopath,” Prentice said. “The reality was that when I met Mr. Abramoff, it was much like meeting other white collar criminals. He’s a man closer to me, and that’s a sobering lesson.”

Printed on Thursday, May 3, 2012 as: Ex-convict gives talk on morality and ethics