Soderquist Sees Center As Link To The Future

Center To Teach Leadership, Ethics, Integrity

With photo by Bill Bowden: Don Soderquist believes John Brown University’s new ethics center will be a model for others.

Donald G. Soderquist says he envisions John Brown University’s new Soderquist Center for Business Leadership and Ethics being a model for universities across the nation.

Thanks to more than $4.65 million in donations — mostly from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and its vendors — the vision is on the road to reality. With an operating budget of $250,000, the rest of the money and any future gifts will go into endowments.

John Brown University, a private Christian school based in Siloam Springs, announced on Aug. 27 its plans to offer graduate and undergraduate degrees through the program. Soderquist says he’s most excited about the center’s rub-off potential.

“We really have a hold of something here,” says Soderquist, Wal-Mart’s vice chairman and chief operating officer as well as chairman of JBU’s board of trustees.

“There are very few universities attempting to do what we’re doing. We’re trying to be a world-class institution that’s willing to share what we learn with the rest of the country. We want to be a model, and that we’re able to do all this from Northwest Arkansas makes it even more exciting.”

The Soderquist Center will not draw only from the sizable corporate community of Northwest Arkansas for lecturers. It’s also not only for business majors or even traditional students.

Plans include bringing business leaders from around the country into the classroom for lectures and seminars. John Brown University, with an enrollment of 1,460, will offer concentrations to all majors as part of a broad-based campus initiative and the program will be a 50-50 split between traditional students and business men and women.

“So many decisions in business are not routine,” says Dellia Haak, interim

director of the center. “Hopefully, we can help train ethical leaders who will make good, long-range decisions for society.

“But leadership and ethics are needed in all areas of life, and that’s why we want to offer this program to a variety of majors and people.”

The first printed program materials, describing courses and admissions requirements, are supposed to be published Jan. 1. Ken Blanchard of San Diego is the program’s first adjunct distinguished fellow.

The co-author of the best-seller One Minute Manager, Blanchard is a trustee of Cornell University and he will help develop curriculum for the Soderquist Center. His company, Blanchard Training & Associates, may be found on the worldwide web at www.blanchardtraining.com.

“In [Blanchard’s] own words, it never pays to cheat to win,” Haak says. “It’s particularly timely to be able to say to this generation of young people, You can take a stand and do what’s right. Those are some of the things we want this program to be able to say.”

The Soderquist Center will initially work out of existing facilities, but plans do include construction “at some point” of its own building. A web site will be included from the program’s outset to serve as means of information exchange and an electronic reference library.

Soderquist says heightened media scrutiny in business and ever-changing world events have created a constant demand for information on ethical leadership. He’s hoping his namesake program will help meet that need.

“Business leaders today will tell you there’s a great need for value-based leadership,” Soderquist says. “There’s an awful lot of talk these days about business and education working together. Businesses are looking for products coming out of colleges who can fulfill the responsibilities needed in in this age of technology.

“Therefore, I feel like what we’re trying to do is very cooperative with both business and the educational process.”