Gift from Shorter College Trustee, Wife to aid in establishment of Business Ethics Institute

With public attention focused on the international financial crisis and the names Enron and WorldCom having become synonymous with corporate corruption, Shorter College is strengthening its focus on business ethics – thanks to a generous gift from a Shorter College trustee and his wife. Col. and Mrs. Harvard Hopkins have pledged $200,000 toward the establishment of the Hopkins Institute for Business Ethics at Shorter. The institute will be housed in the college’s School of Business Administration.

Shorter College President Harold E. Newman described the Hopkins Institute as a significant point of distinction for the college. “Col. and Mrs. Hopkins are making a gift that will have a transformational impact on Shorter College students and on the communities in which those students eventually work and serve. Through their generous support, the Hopkins are enabling Shorter to have a much larger impact in promoting ethical behavior. Their gift is also a tangible example of the trustees’ caring for Shorter College and our students.”

A portion of the Hopkins’ gift will fund an annual ethics seminar, featuring notable individuals in government, education, industry, medicine or other fields who are known as ethical leaders. “An important focus of the seminar will be on demonstrating that it is possible to be ethical and successful at the same time,” said Dr. Robert “Dub” Darville, dean of Shorter’s School of Business Administration. “This is an important conversation for our students in these days after Enron, World Com, Tyco and moving forward to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. People are looking for individuals to be leaders who exhibit ethical decision-making, and Shorter, as a Christian institution, wants to be a voice promoting the importance of ethics instruction and practice. The Hopkins gift will help make that desire into reality.”

The inaugural lecture hosted by the Hopkins Institute for Business Ethics will be held at Shorter College during the spring semester of 2009.

Col. Hopkins is a member of Shorter College’s Board of Trustees. The Hopkins’ two children are both graduates of Shorter College; son Joe Hopkins graduated in 1988 and daughter Katherine “Katie” Hopkins Markham graduated in 1992. Joe is married to Suzanne Branch Hopkins, who is a 1988 graduate of Shorter, and Katie is married to Rich Markham, a 1990 graduate of Shorter.

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