Dinner with Dick

The course was really called, "Ethical Considerations in Business Decisions."  Wesleyan got funding; the intent of which was to improve communication between the business community and the university. Bob Kirkpatrick asked if I'd like to apply, so I did. I got the money. 

The class met once each week; we'd have discussions when there were no guests.  During a regular semester, I would have probably 7 guests for the 14 class sessions. 

A guest would come, he would talk about ethical considerations about his decisions. Guests were all senior executives, including a recently retired CEO of GE and a current CEO of GE.  

We used the money from the grant for refreshments for the class and dinner for a subset of the class. The class became known as "Dinner with Dick." 

I tried to get a convicted prisoner out of Danbury prison. He had said yes, then the week before said no.  So I was stuck.

The man who didn't come was a convicted felon who had stolen 2 million dollars. The company was Certainteed. I think he didn't come because he felt he would look bad in front of the students. Embarrassed. 

Instead of the visitor, I read 2 lengthy articles from the WSJ that described what he did, how he was caught and where he was spending his 10 years.  At the end of the 2 hour session, the students left the room in complete silence.