The New Mexico State University College of Business is collaborating with the state of New Mexico in the development of a comprehensive, statewide, interactive online ethics training program to serve more than 21,000 state employees. The training program is funded by a Daniels Fund grant in the amount of $246,750, which was recently awarded to the NMSU College of Business.
Through its Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative, the college has gained valuable experience in the development of customized, high-standard ethics training programs. Garrey Carruthers, dean of the College of Business and vice president for economic development, said the grant is a valuable resource in the college's goal to create innovative ways to educate and extend ethics training.
"This is a great opportunity for our college and I feel confident that our staff, faculty and students will produce a thought-provoking and beneficial product," Carruthers said.
Linda Childears, president and CEO of the Daniels Fund, said the success of the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative at the university is attributed to the strong leadership at the College of Business. She said the initiative has made a tremendous impact at the campus and in the surrounding communities since its inception in 2010. The Daniels Fund is a private foundation established by Bill Daniels, a cable pioneer and former New Mexico resident.
"The success of this program, as well as other programs we have supported at NMSU, gave us confidence that the new statewide online ethics program would be successful in helping prepare New Mexico public officials and employees to identify and appropriately address common ethical issues and dilemmas in the public sector. We are delighted to help support this program," Childears said.
The grant covers production costs for the creation of six online training modules. Recipents of the training will learn about ethical behaviors specific to government and the workplace. Each module will address a topic or a common, state-identified ethical issue.
Bruce Huhmann, College of Business associate professor and Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative Chair, said the ethics training modules will be produced over the next three years. Employees will be required to complete one ethical training module per year.
"This is a proactive approach to address an identified need to provide public ethics education in cooperation with the State Personnel Office," Huhmann said.
Huhmann said previous training programs developed by the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative are already making an impact throughout New Mexico.
"The College of Business is excited about increasing our ethics education outreach efforts with this new program by broadening the scope of delivery, and developing this training application so it suits not only the needs of our state personnel but others as well," Huhmann said.
Carruthers is delighted that the Daniels Fund has given NMSU this additional grant to expand the college's ethics curriculum development work.
"The ethics training films to be developed from the grant are a cooperative effort among NMSU faculty, and the Personnel Department in Governor Susana Martinez's administration," Carruthers said "I anticipate these training films will be very useful not only in New Mexico, but in the other states serviced by the Daniels Fund. Governor Martinez has indicated she will be pleased to introduce the finished training films to her colleagues in the Western States."
Visit the following link for more information about the Daniel Fund Ethics Initiative: http://business.nmsu.edu/programs-centers/daniels-ethics/