UW Team Wins Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Case Competition

For the second consecutive year, a team of undergraduate students from the University of Wyoming’s College of Business has won the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Case Competition.

The team of Payson Birkeland, of Aladdin; Hayden Hassinger, of Cheyenne; McKenna Kail, of Lander; Ellie Keeler, of Broomfield, Colo.; and Tucker Norman, of Pine Bluffs, displayed its ethical reasoning and decision-making abilities in the prestigious competition.

The 11th annual event -- recently held in Aurora, Colo. -- challenged 10 undergraduate and nine graduate student teams from business schools in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming as part of the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Collegiate Program.

This year’s competition featured a thought-provoking business ethics case about a global supply chain company, with the student teams taking on the role of a consulting firm. Their task was to analyze the ethical issues involved such as privacy, employee monitoring, conflicts of interest and working from home versus the office. Teams then presented their recommendations to a panel of business and community leaders.

The UW team’s presentation was judged against the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative principles of integrity, trust, accountability, transparency, fairness, respect, the rule of law and viability.

“Once again, our students demonstrated their exceptional ability to analyze complex ethical situations and present well-reasoned recommendations to a panel of accomplished business professionals,” says Chase Thiel, UW faculty adviser to the undergraduate team and the Bill Daniels Chair of Business Ethics. “I am incredibly proud of their hard work and dedication, and how they have represented the University of Wyoming.”

A UW graduate student team also competed, but it did not place. Representing UW were Bridger Bogus, of Cheyenne; Adaeze Eze, of Lagos, Nigeria; Brett Hollingshead, of Highlands Ranch, Colo.; Alice Hovis, of LaGrange; and Jacob Kirby, of San Marcos, Texas.

The Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Collegiate Program, established in 2010, instills a high standard of ethics in students and strengthens principle-based ethics education in participating schools. The consortium consists of 11 universities across four states.

To learn more about the Daniels Fund and the results of the competition, go here.

For more information about UW’s teams, email Thiel at cthiel1@uwyo.edu.