Students from eight Lasallian universities and colleges participated this spring in the third annual Lasallian Social Impact Case Competition, where they examined the Harvard Business Review case, “Theranos: Who Had Blood on Their Hands?” and proposed solutions incorporating Lasallian values.
This was the first year the competition’s reach extended outside the United States. In addition to small teams of students from La Salle University, Lewis University, Manhattan College, Saint Mary’s College of California and Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, three schools from Mexico put forward teams: Universidad De La Salle Cuernavaca, Universidad La Salle Victoria and Universidad La Salle Morelia.*
In total, about 45 students participated in the virtual competition held on April 12. Each school’s team presented their argument, followed by a Q&A session by a panel of judges, composed of faculty from the different institutions. Saint Mary’s College of California’s team took first place.
Ryan Butt, dean of the College of Business at Lewis University, said the competition was originally conceived after he attended a conference hosted by IALU, the International Association La Salle Universities, where he met Donald Gibson, now the incoming dean of the School of Economics and Business Administration at Saint Mary’s College of California. Meeting Gibson gave Butt the idea to reach out to the other deans of business schools at Lasallian universities and colleges in the U.S.
With the goal to connect and be “in association,” the deans began to meet online monthly in 2020. The group decided to establish a virtual case competition for students called the Lasallian Business Ethics Competition, which was first held in spring 2022 with the six Lasallian universities and colleges in the U.S. participating. The competition was held again in spring 2023, this time with a focus on social impact.
The five core principles of Lasallian schools “lend well to creating a different type of business leader,” Butt said. All the teams “really put an emphasis on (the core principles) to develop these recommendations that would be reflective of Lasallian education.”
“A key element that we teach here at Lewis in the business school is that we’re interconnected to one another. It’s this desire to do good in business,” Butt said. Lasallian students are able to discern, in wisdom and through justice, how to make business decisions that will have a significant impact on the population, he added.
That’s part of why the competition switched it’s focus from business ethics to social impact, Butt said. “We look at De La Salle, the impact he had 400 years ago teaching students in the vernacular and teaching them life skills was revolutionary.”
Looking to the future, Butt said the ultimate goal is “to bring students together from different countries to connect in person, in association, for a two- or three-day competition, where they get to go to the host city, wherever the (host) school is.”
*Christian Brothers University was unable to participate this year.
Photo by Logan Kap, courtesy of Lewis University