This is what it’s all about!

Linda Gallicchio

I was a co-facilitator of a creative inquiry course on women’s leadership for 18 months. One of the students in that course was Calla Jean. If you didn’t see it above, she wrote the Reflection of a Former Member of The Orange Wave. I asked her to write a piece that would speak to what she got out of The Orange Wave experience. When she sent me the final draft, after reading through the last sentence, if she had been close by, I would’ve hugged her!

“I can bring what I know and what I think, but unless I am willing to change my mind and to really listen to the people around me, my arguments and my team will never be great.”

 ~Calla Jean

To graduate from college with this understanding is awesome! Sadly, there are too many people in the U.S. who aren’t willing to really listen and be open to the possibility of changing their minds, to be civil to one another. They are everywhere. Some of them are “us”. And for the most part, our children are learning the lesson of intolerance of other’s ideas and overt disrespect. It can be really depressing, sometimes overwhelming, to think about and watch.

But now I have the wonderful gift of Calla’s words and insight. She gets it. It was truly uplifting to read. And that’s what the Rutland Institute is all about. Changing lives, one student at a time. One class “of Ethics Across the Curriculum” for the faculty at a time. One requirement “to demonstrate the distributed competency of ethical judgment” in order to graduate at a time.  One Presidential Colloquium series speaker at a time.

Positive change never seems to happen as quickly as we want – that’s life. But change does happen in many ways during the time our students spend on campus. The Rutland Institute for Ethics has established a notable footprint (ok, tiger paw). Yet there is so much more opportunity out there than there are resources. It’s been that way since the start. Still, everyone toils on, making the difference that each of us has been able to make.

If you care about integrity and ethical judgment, please consider a contribution, or allocating some of your contribution, to the Clemson Fund and become a member of the Rutland Ethics Alliance. If you look for those attributes in prospective employees, think of our students. Be a part of changing things, for the better, for all of us.

“Ethics is the connection of the intellect with the soul of a person in the decision process, both professionally and personally.”

~Robert J. Rutland

The mission of the institute is to nurture an ethical environment in all communities of life: education, the professions, business and government.

*Annual membership in the Rutland Ethics Alliance is recorded as a tax-deductible contribution to the Clemson University Foundation, and donors are eligible for the Clemson Fund annual gift clubs. To help support Clemson’s efforts to increase private gifts, 5 percent of each gift made to most non-endowment funds will be reinvested.