In recognition of their ground-breaking work with the Certificate Program in Leadership and Ethics (CPLE) at the College of Business Administration, Pitt Business faculty members Audrey Murrell and Ray Jones received the 2018 University of Pittsburgh Provost’s Diversity in the Curriculum Award.

Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the University Center for Teaching and Learning, the awards recognize faculty for excellence in integrating diversity and inclusion into their courses. The five award winners also included faculty from the School of Social Work, School of Pharmacy, the Department of Political Science at the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, and the Division of Natural Sciences at Pitt Johnstown.

According to the awards committee, Murrell and Jones were selected for their contributions to business educational programs during the past nearly 30 years. Their co-creation of the CPLE program was cited as an exemplary model for infusing diversity and inclusion into a business school curriculum.

Open to all business majors, the Pitt Business CPLE is a 16-credit program focused on the complex issues of ethics, leadership, corporate social responsibility, diversity, and stakeholder management. The bedrock of the program is the concept of service-learning, which challenges students to work with community stakeholders on business-focused projects with an ethical component.

Since 2004, CPLE students have contributed more than 16,000 hours in class projects for nonprofits, government agencies, and businesses. The projects have supported such community-enhancing initiatives as eradicating hunger, expanding access to childhood special education, and developing business plans for entrepreneurs in economically distressed neighborhoods. Most projects occur in Pittsburgh but some have occurred as far away as London, England.

“It was an honor to receive the Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Curriculum, which validates the positive impact of our business students on the community at large,” says Murrell, who is also the director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership, which developed the curriculum for the CPLE program.

“The CPLE program teaches our students that ethics and leadership are interlocking principles that must be studied, understood, and practiced together. Long after they graduate, our students apply these important lessons in the workforce where they are able to make a big difference in the world,” Murrell says.

Arjang Assad, dean of Pitt’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration, commended Murrell and Jones for developing an innovative program that prepares business students to be good corporate citizens.

“The CPLE program is noteworthy because it exposes business students, many of whom will be the future leaders in their companies, to difficulty community issues that are often overlooked in the business environment,” Assad wrote in his nomination letter.

Fast Facts about the CPLE

• The CPLE is a 16-credit program at Pitt Business that students enroll in after their first year.
• CPLE students will complete service-learning projects in which they perform consulting work for a client with a concrete set of deliverables.
• CPLE students develop skills in the areas of project management, public speaking, written communications, data analysis, leadership, and ethics
• Visit the Pitt Business CPLE Website for more information >>