Catholic University to launch new business school, teaching marketing and morals

From the Wall Street Journal: 

Confident that aspiring corporate leaders want to worship more than just the almighty dollar, Catholic University of America is creating a new business school.

The Washington, D.C., university will announce the launch of its new School of Business and Economics on Tuesday, infusing an education in strategy, accounting and marketing with instruction in morals, character and religious values.

Created in response to rising demand for business education, the program’s virtues-based approach hinges on the idea that business is meant to foment social good and not just financial success; that’s a departure from a traditional business education, which focuses mainly on how to maximize profits.

“Business is supposed to be a service to society,” says Andrew Abela, chair of the business and economics program, now housed in Catholic’s School of Arts and Sciences and comprised mostly of undergraduate students.

The school is focusing more on the Catholic concept of natural law in its undergraduate ethics course. And starting this spring, its introductory business class will address the social impact of commerce.

In the next academic year, the school will begin overhauling its core courses. For example, accounting classes will stress judgment calls about what revenue can be kept off the books, along with the math behind those revenue calculations. Catholic, which enrolls a handful of graduate students, doesn’t currently offer an M.B.A. degree—students earn their master’s degree in accounting and other topics—though it may eventually do so.

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