OUR MISSION

To empower the Ethical Leadership scholars and the Ripon College community to lead with a sense of purpose. As students and community members we endeavor to apply ethical principles from intensive academic study in a collaborative way and demonstrate integrity in every belief and action to better serve the community in pursuit of contributing to the common good.

OUR VISION

The Ethical Leadership Program is the premier leader in the study and application of ethical leadership. The program integrates ‘who’ scholars want to be with what they intend to do in the world through the guiding tenants of knowledge, courage, and conduct, all of which focus on improving the common good through ethical decision making.

OUR FOUNDATION

The Ripon College Ethical Leadership Program is based on the same philosophical point of view as Ripon College.  That point of view is firmly grounded in the philosophical and educational stance of the Western tradition: believing in the inherent dignity and value of the individual, the rights and freedoms that follow from that value and the commitment to justice and integrity needed to realize that value in our lives.  That tradition emphasizes firm principles, careful thought and broadly based understanding as essential to ethical integrity.  The Ethical Leadership Program, then, does not require a particular course or a particular thinker.  Rather, we bring in business people, lawyers, educators, doctors, clergy, scientists and others and ask them to present a case study of an ethical situation they faced and to explore with us how they resolved it.  Similarly, in courses and out-of-class activities, we engage the students in careful analysis and mentored discussions of ethical problems so that they learn to reason their way through the issues giving adequate attention to motive, process and outcome.  We do not believe that ethical decisions are made simply on the basis of theory, but are hard decisions requiring expert knowledge as well as good intentions.