Old dogs; new tricks

Or, more like 27.5-year old dogs; new tricks.
A recent post in UVA Today posed the question asked by the NY Times: "Is it time to Retrain Business Schools?"
Of course! We should be teaching our little 27.5-year olds about the shift in the role of business in society. Shareholders? Pshaw! How about the entire world?
However, it's not as glaring here at Darden as it may be in some other schools (like, say, those North of here). I don't see a need for a dramatic paradigm shift at Darden like I see the need at other schools. If you walk into any classroom, you can hear the word "value" and "stakeholder" spoken more and more. Sure, we're kind of tired of these words, because as is the nature of these catchy phrases, they are now misused and applied to the wrong things. But at any rate, we are always challenging ourselves and others to re-define what value creation and stakeholder theory and responsibility mean. Viva la case method.
Just ask Dean Bruner. That guy gets it.
We don't have a "Wall of Shame" like some other schools might, featuring disgraced CEOs whose activities caused the SEC to knock on their McMansion door at 2 a.m. We don't give standing ovations to Ken Lay when he visits. I have only met 1 alumni during my 19 months at Darden who I found of questionable ethics and motives. Just 1!
Some who don't know me might criticize my view, saying I'm just another brainwashed exec in a suit who has a transfusion of Darden Kool-Aid on a nightly basis. Au contrair! Those who know me will call me a hippie, earth mother, idealist, free-thinker, and quirky. My ability to blend in on Wall Street is laughable at best. I dismiss PDAs as unhealthy boundary-busters that disturb our last vestiges of personal peace. If I have to wear something from Anne Klein two days in a row I start to squirm.
I came to business school because I knew that I had to change the conversation business was having about its responsibility for the well-being of the world. I had to bridge the gap between those who have sustainability (the oft-misused term but for my purposes means sustainable existence of mankind) in their DNA and those who are just becoming aware. And I've definitely learned tools here at Darden that I'm pretty sure other schools wouldn't have taught me.
If any school is prepared to forge ahead into the new way of thinking, it's Darden. Just look around. Our faculty and administration REALLY listens to us. Just a few years ago, when environmental consciousness broke through the Mason-Dixon line, students started speaking up. Now, our NetImpact club is one of Darden's largest and most active.
Proof is in the pudding, folks. We are already changing the way we live, learn, and lead.
(Ok. End of rah-rah speech.)