F2017 Class

The Business, Faith and Common Good Seminar Class was started in 2015 to provide a class to help students learn more about how business, faith, and the common good are interrelated. MBA and undergrad students (in liberal arts as well as business) may take the class. We look at a variety of traditions and perspectives. Unique to this class is the fact that we bring in faculty from across the country to speak to interact with our seminar. See the 2016 speakers here, and the 2017 speakers here.

This semester we will have guest expert faculty speak to our seminar group in person coming from Loyola-Baltimore, St. Johns (NY), St. Louis U., Villanova, La Sierra U., and Boston College, and other departments from Creighton. When we have guest speakers, we will typically attend their public talk in Harper 6-7pm, and then our seminar group will get to talk with them in our seminar 715-845. Other students and faculty are welcome to join our seminar group as guests. Our tentative list of speakers this year will be:

Bonnie Wilson St. Louis U “Economics from a Catholic Jesuit Perspective”

Mary Hirschfield , Villanova: “St. Thomas Aquinas and Adam Smith”

Charles Clark St. John’s (NY): What Economics Can Learn From Catholic Thought

Richard Nielsen, Boston College: A Quaker View of Business

Graham Macaleer, Loyola-Baltimore: Ethics of Fashion

Lance Sandelands , U. Michigan : “How Work Forms and Shapes Us Spiritually”

Gary Chartier, La Sierra U (CA) “Economic Justice and Natural Law”

Each week there will be online discussion assignments, as well as some readings related to class and the guest speakers. In addition to weekly assignments, there are no tests or quizzes, but a final paper and final presentation project which you will present on the last day of class when we meet at Johnny’s Steakhouse for our last class (Gustafson’s treat!)

Many readings will be online, but assigned books from which we will read include: Business for the Common Good (Rae & Wong), Working for Our Neighbor: A Lutheran Primer on Vocation, Economics and Ordinary Life (Veith); Being at Work (Sandelands); Respect In Action: Applying Subsidiarity in Business (Naughton et al); and Vocation of the Business Leader

If you have any questions, please contact Andy Gustafson (andrewgustafson@creighton.edu)

TENTATIVE Fall 2017 SCHEDULE:

Week 1 (8/24) Business and the Common Good, Business and Faith, and Faith and the Common Good

Overview: 1. Introduction 2.Various conceptions of business (Stockholder, Stakeholder, etc) 3. Business and the Common Good; 4. Business and Faith

Read: What ever Happened to the Common Good? (Time)

Business, the Economy, and the Poor (Gustafson)

 *Business for the Common Good Ch 1 Reading (Online Discussion)

Week 2 (8/31) Catholic Social Thought: An Introduction

1) 2016 was the 30th anniversary of the 1986 Pastoral Letter of the Catholic Bishops on the U.S. Economy: “Economic Justice for All”:http://www.usccb.org/upload/economic_justice_for_all.pdf

2) It’s also the 25th anniversary of Centesimus Annus (1991), and the 125th anniversary ofRerum Novarum (1891). I’ll focus especially on chapters 1, 2, and 4 of Centesimus Annus:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO READ THESE IN THEIR ENTIRETY! JUST FOCUS ON THE PARAGRAPHS I ASK QUESTIONS ON:

Questions TBA

Example of a study/reading question:

7.CENTESIMUS ANNUS (which means 100 years) was written on the 100th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, (Latin for “Revolutionary Change”) and otherwise called “Rights and duties of capital and labor”. Rerum Novarum had been written by Pope Leo VIII and was intended to try to address “The misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class.” Centesimus Annus was written by Pope John Paul II who was from Communist Poland and had witnessed terrible things from communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall, etc. Pope John Paul II was critical of communist regiemes but also of anti communist dictators. C.A. emphasizes the role of the state to help the poor. Reading from par12-29, why is the pope rejecting socialism (state ownership of businesses), and how should the state best help the poor?

*Business for the Common Good Ch 2 Reading (Online Discussion)

Week 3 (9/7) Bonnie Wilson, Economist, St. Louis University

“Economics from a Catholic Jesuit Perspective”

Questions TBA

Week 4 (9/14) Catholic Social Thought and Business Practices

Read: “The Distinctive Vocation of Business Education in Catholic Universities”

Vocation of the Business Leader

Interview with Goodpaster and Naughton

Example Study Question: 1. In light of the Goodpaster article on distinctiveness of BusEd at Catholic Universities, what are three things you could imagine Creighton doing to be ‘more distinctively Catholic/Christian’?

2. What are gift and reciprocity from VoBL?

3. What do you think of Goodpaster’s claim that business is a spiritual activity?

4. What do you think of Naughton’s comment that “The end of business is developing products and services that enhance the common good, and developing communities of work that help people to develop. Profit is a means to achieve these ends.”

(Links to an external site.)

Week 5 (9/21) Mary Hirschfield , Economist/Theologian, Villanova: “St. Thomas Aquinas and Adam Smith”

Read: “How a Thomistic Moral Framework Can Take Social Causality Seriously”

Aquinas on Money Lending

List the questions and simple answer to each question of Aquinas (9 Qs)