The Business, Faith and Common Good Institute had a substantial impact on the discussions at Creighton University this last schoolyear.

Of course our speaker series which included Andreas Widmer (Catholic University), Joe Vukov (Loyola Chicago), Alex Salter (Texas Tech) and Zach McDonald (Omaha Entrepreneur) provided wonderful public forum opportunities for students, faculty and the larger community to learn and discuss contemporary issues regarding business, faith and society.

A new and impactful piece of our curriculum development was Gustafson’s “Social Media, AI, and the Meaning of Life” course, which is aimed to help students consider and reflect and then act on the issues arising from the growing influence of social media and AI in our society. One of the most powerful assignments in the class, it turns out, was the 5 minutes of silence and nonactivity which every student was supposed to practice every single day, and then reflect and report on 3 times during the semester. Students reported that at first it was the most difficult assignment they had ever had, but then as the semester went on they reported that that 5 minutes was the time they looked forward to the most. Substantial habit changes have happened for students due to the course, each of the 3 times it has now been offered (spring 2024, fall 2024, spring 2025).

Creighton is a wonderful place to get to work at living out one’s values in business. The BFCGI is fortunate to get to have the support and freedom afforded from Creighton.

Andy Gustafson, Lead Colleague of the Business Faith and Common Good Institute