Darden School of Business Professor Patricia H. Werhane, a nationally recognized leader in the study of business ethics, retired from Darden yesterday after 16 years of leadership and service.
At a reception for Werhane in Darden’s Piano Room, Darden Dean Bob Bruner proposed a toast: “Pat is a beloved faculty member and citizen of the wider University community who has shown great thought, moral and administrative leadership.”
Since joining the Darden faculty in 1993, Werhane, who is the Ruffin Professor of Business Ethics and a Senior Fellow of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, has been a pillar of Darden’s business ethics community. She taught the required course “First Year Ethics” (Darden was one of the first business schools to require an ethics course in its First Year MBA curriculum). She shaped and influenced numerous MBA and Ph.D. students and played a key role in bringing the Business Roundtable Institute of Corporate Ethics to Darden. She remains an academic advisor for the Institute.
“Ethics and leadership are a part of Darden’s DNA,” said Werhane.
A prolific scholar, Werhane has written 71 case studies, 60 articles and 24 books, including Moral Imagination and Management Decision-Makingand Organization Ethics in Health Care. She is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Business Ethics Quarterly, the leading journal of business ethics. She is also an acclaimed authority on employee rights in the workplace, a leading scholar on Adam Smith, and a founding member and past president of the Society for Business Ethics. In 2001, Werhane was elected to the Executive Committee of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics.
Werhane’s many professional achievements placed her on Ethisphere magazine’s list of the “100 Most Influential People in Business Ethics in 2008.”
Her next chapter will take her to DePaul University, where she will continue her appointment as Wicklander Chair in Business Ethics and Director of the Institute for Business and Professional Ethics.
Founded in 1955, the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business is a professional school that improves society by developing principled leaders for the world of practical affairs.
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