CBA Faculty Spotlight: Marshall Schminke

Council Bluffs, Iowa is a long way from UCF, and Marshall Schminke took an interesting path to get here. He once quit school to join a rock band, went back to school, but left a second time so he could purchase and run a nightclub. After that experience, he returned to school again and the third time was finally a charm. Not only did he receive his undergraduate degree, he went on to earn a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. Today, he is the inaugural BB&T Professor of Business Ethics.

Prior to joining UCF in 1999, Schminke held the Daugherty Endowed Chair in Managerial Ethics at Creighton University. His research has resulted in numerous awards and he is widely published. He has an interesting philosophy regarding teaching students about business ethics. "Most major ethical meltdowns in business are not the result of bad guys versus good guys.  While those situations may exist, most of what you read about is people who used to be good, who get themselves into situations they find a way out of, and then things take bad turns," he said. As a result, his message to students includes two central themes: 

• First, this could happen to you.  It's not enough to be a good guy, and to assume doing so means you won't land in trouble.  Often, good guys wear blinders that prevent them from seeing what's coming until it's too late. 
• Second, it's not enough to be a good guy, in the sense of not doing bad things.  Ethical leadership involves standing up and taking a stand when others are doing bad things.  That's tough, especially when you are young and just starting out.  Keeping your own nose clean is easy.  What's hard is the proactive part, where somebody has to stand up and say, "No, this is not what we are about as an organization." 

He offers the following advice to students. "Don't take the easy way. In a large university such as UCF, it's sometimes possible to do, but this is your last chance to do something really challenging, really hard, really meaningful, with almost no downside if it doesn't work out. He concludes by saying "I don't mean to sound like a commercial here, but we say UCF Stands for Opportunity. It turns out that is really true, for students, faculty, staff and administrators. There is more opportunity here than any of us could ever take full advantage of. The key, I guess, is to try to take advantage of some of it!" 

You can learn more about Marshall Schminke by visiting his Web site.