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Headlines Leadership in Times of Crisis Business schools are constantly looking for ways to give students real-world experience, and nothing is more real than a natural disaster. Around the world, business students organized relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina, learning valuable lessons about leadership during crises. Some examples: s At San Diego State University in California, students in a graduate busi- ness planning class set a goal of raising $1 million for small business owners affected by the hurricane. Professor and various advertising and market- ing campaigns to secure donations. s The Coles College of Bus i ness in Kennesaw, Georgia, launched the Small Business Restoration Initiative, drawing on expertise from the Coles College of Business, the Small Busi- ness Development Center, the Cobb Microenterprise Cen ter, and school alumni, faculty, and students. The ini- tiative quickly designed a business disaster Web Site (http://coles .kennesaw.edu/disaster/) to assist business owners struggling to rebuild business documents, contact their for- mer customers, or apply for disaster loans. Accounting, legal, banking, and other professional firms part- nered in the initiative. s At Emory University's Volunteer crews rescue a family in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Michael Cunningham donated $25,000 in seed money and chal- lenged students to turn that into $1 million by year's end. Dubbed the Katrina Aid & Relief Effort (KARE), the fund will provide business owners grants for expenses not covered by insurance. All money raised will support the Small Business Disaster Relief Fund, which was set up by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry with the assis- tance of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. Grant recipients will be determined by a panel that at one point was receiving more than 100 applications per day. Students plan - ned a telethon, a Mardi Gras party, 10 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2006 Goizueta Business School in Atlanta, MBA students organ- ized a business competition that netted $70,000 for the American Red Cross Hurri- cane Relief Effort. The Cap- stone Leadership Challenge was held during the first week of the full-time MBA program. Twenty teams of ten students each wrote and executed business plans, using $200 in seed money pro- vided by the MBA Program Office. The team that raised the most money—$19,500—partnered with the Atlanta Braves. During a game, volunteers asked fans for donations to buy ca re packages of toiletries and school supplies. Major League Baseball matched the funds raised at the game; the students then began seeking donors to match the remain- ing portion of funds raised. The relief efforts helped students understand that good corporate citi- zenship is a critical part of business leadership. "Business leaders face decisions that test their commitment to social responsibility," said Bob Weston, president of Goizueta Business School's Graduate Business Association. "While the experience taught us about the challenges of coordinating resources during diffi- cult times, it also enabled us to wit- ness the impact that leaders can have on a community in need." Ethics and Environmentalism Increasing at B-Schools More and more business schools are doing a better job helping students under- stand the social, environmental, and economic perspectives of doing busi- ness in a global economy. That's one of the key findings of Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial report issued by World Resources Institute and the Aspen Institute. Results of the 2005 survey were released last fall at Citigroup in New York. Of the 91 business schools sur- veyed on six continents, 54 percent now require a course in ethics, cor- porate social responsibility, sustain- ability, or business and society, up from 45 percent in 2003 and 34 per- cent in 2001. Additionally, the report finds that some leading schools are launching courses on topics such as exploring private-sector approaches for addressing problems in low- income markets. The number of these courses offered has increased dramatically since 2003. According to the report, the busi- ness school that does the best job of integrating social and environmental issues into its MBA curriculum is Stanford University in California. The other schools in the top ten are ESADE in Barcelona, Spain; York University in Toronto, Canada; ITESM in Mexico; University of Notre Dame in Indiana; George AP PHOTO/BEN SKLAR