Students, administrators, and alumni gathered Monday night in the Irish Room in Gasson Hall to hear this semester's Clough Colloquium guest speaker, Cynthia Cooper, as she addressed the issues of ethics and corporate accountability.
Cooper served as vice president for internal audit for the telecommunications company WorldCom, which made national news in 2002 when Cooper and her team of auditors discovered accounting frauds within the company's records. The investigation following the discovery led to the exposure of the largest corporate accounting fraud in history. Cooper was named one of Time magazine's People of the Year in 2002 along with Coleen Rowley, an FBI agent, and Sherron Watkins, the former vice president of Enron Corporation who alerted then-CEO Ken Lay to accounting irregularities within the company. Rowley and Watkins were acknowledged for their own roles in uncovering incompetency and fraud in the FBI and Enron, respectively. Cooper is also the author of the book Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower.
The event was sponsored by the Winston Center for Leadership and Ethics, an organization within the Carroll School of Management (CSOM) that conducts research, programming, and offers education models focused on leadership and ethics. The Clough Colloquium is one of several series produced by the Winston Center and is funded by Charles Clough, BC '64.
Introductions were made by Richard Keeley, associate dean of CSOM, and Cutberto Garza, University provost and dean of faculties. Cooper began the lecture by discussing ethics and morality in the workplace and the home and then progressed into an account of her time at WorldCom. "We all have to consider how the choices we make on a daily basis have compounding consequences," Cooper said in her address to the audience. "We need to understand the mindset of complacency with unethical behavior that allowed this fraud to occur." Cooper engaged the audience by using the energy and participation of audience members to demonstrate different psychological principles that contribute to unethical behavior.
In her account of her time at WorldCom, Cooper said that she was often forced to make the decision of whether to remain loyal to her corporation or to follow her personal values. "Loyalty is important in many facets of life - like the business world, the military, and the household - but it has to be balanced with a clear self-understanding," Cooper said.
Students present at the event said that they were glad to hear a first-hand account of someone who was on the inside of the WorldCom scandal. Boston University students Henning Heityogt and Michael Waldner said that they "enjoyed the individual focus [Cooper] gave."
"Too many people don't ask questions, or they don't know enough about the issues in a company; you just have to focus on yourself," Heiyogt said.
Kevin Porter, CSOM '11, said that it was good to hear much of the same principles he has learned in the classroom being mentioned in the lecture. "You learn some things in the classroom and think to yourself 'when am I ever going to have to use this?'" Porter said. "I was able to draw clear parallels between my classroom experience and the subject material in Ms. Cooper's speech; I think I took a lot from this lecture."
"There're so many valuable lessons that can be gleaned from not only WorldCom but also all the corporate scandals that we have seen, and I think it's critically important that we try to share those lessons with the next generation of leaders so that we can prevent these frauds and respond to them more quickly when they do occur," Cooper said. Cooper said that she wanted to instill a sense of personal responsibility in students, which she said will play a large part in preventing ethical problems. "I think that it's important for the students to think about their own values, what they stand for, what they believe in, and to draw those ethical boundaries early in life. When you enter the workforce, you get pressured to do something you are not comfortable with. We're all faced with ethical dilemmas on a daily basis" Cooper said.
Cooper's speech marks the sixth event sponsored by the Clough Colloquium, which began in 2006 and, according to administrators, is looking to continue well into the future. Clough, who was present at Monday's lecture, said that seeing all the people there supporting the lecture series generates a great feeling.
"We are hoping that we can really get the train rolling on this series. We have some great speakers lined up," he said. Clough also praised Cooper and her ability to connect to the audience. "It's wonderful how [Cooper] is able to connect her experiences to those of everyone here; it's a subject everybody can relate to," Clough said.
Jonah Berman, associate director for the Winston Center, said that the program will continue to find the best speakers out there, in accordance with the interests of the school.
"We are going to keep looking at the landscape and see what people out there want to see," Berman said. "We hope that the more we get our name around, the more people around campus will start associating this speaker series with good conversation."
Berman said that the Winston Center is always open to new ideas from students, especially undergraduates. "We have a primarily undergraduate focus for these events, meaning that any students out there who have good ideas should let us know."
Be the first to comment on this article!