About ten years ago, a faculty member from one of the science departments attended a business school faculty meeting at the university where I was working. He asked to address our group and proceeded to berate us for teaching our students to maximize the bottom line (accounting profit) by using business strategies that were destroying the planet Earth.
He accused us of teaching students that, in the interest of profit, it was good business to pollute our rivers and streams, foul our air, contaminate the soil, and destroy the ozone layer. The shocking part of his diatribe was that he believed what he was saying.
At the time, I thought to myself that the arrogance and conceit of this well intentioned, grossly ignorant man were reprehensible. He had never attended a single lecture by any professor in the school of business. He assumed that my colleagues and I were teaching this kind of drivel. His conclusions were based on anecdotal data about a few businesspeople, out of tens of millions, who were abusing the system.
He accused us of teaching students that, in the interest of profit, it was good business to pollute our rivers and streams, foul our air, contaminate the soil, and destroy the ozone layer. The shocking part of his diatribe was that he believed what he was saying.
At the time, I thought to myself that the arrogance and conceit of this well intentioned, grossly ignorant man were reprehensible. He had never attended a single lecture by any professor in the school of business. He assumed that my colleagues and I were teaching this kind of drivel. His conclusions were based on anecdotal data about a few businesspeople, out of tens of millions, who were abusing the system.
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