College of Business Administration

GROUP MEMBERS:

Lauren Cilman
Bree Halsey
Heather Meeks
Martin Shull

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Our mission was to implement a social change project in conjunction with Hoover High’s Virtual Enterprise class to assist the program by meeting the current needs of the students and increasing awareness in the business sectors of the community. As a group we decided our objectives would be to find interested college students to help tutor high school students, improve awareness of the Virtual Enterprise program, acquire business contacts for the annual business fair, and as the main objective, improve the education of the high school students.

The Virtual Enterprise program simulates a real world business environment where students learn the core dimensions and fundamentals of business. At Hoover High over 95% of the students come from economically disadvantaged families. Upon the request of Brenda Nason (teacher of the class) we decided our main objective would be to improve the education of the students.

The reason why our group chose to focus on this program was the desire to help these students in areas where a classroom education could not. We were aware of the situation that these students were in, coming from disadvantaged families and neighborhoods, and decided that they deserved our assistance. We believed as a group that having business people surround them in the classroom and at the fair would bring about an education that could last a lifetime. By educating these students we hope in turn they will find the importance of everyday business and apply their learning in the future onto somebody or something else.

We decided that we should measure our Social Change Project up against two important ethical frameworks; the Ethic of Care and Deontology. The Ethic of Care asks us to recognize and take seriously the moral worth of relationships, particularly those characterized by caring. Our team took part in helping the students gain knowledge of business by getting members of our community to participate in their Virtual Enterprise. Those students that want to achieve a better education should have the opportunity to do so. Through our effort and care for these students we were able to bring that opportunity to them. Deontology is the ethical theory that holds actions are morally right or wrong independent of their consequences. Our team’s obligation was to try and help the student’s learn more about business relations by finding them tutors and an opportunity to relate with businessmen and women. It was our duty as members of a social contract that we work to help these students progress. We are not confident on what the outcome will be of our work, but our motives, whether right or wrong, are independent of the consequences according to Deontology.

We profoundly feel our project turned out a success. We acquired the contact information of ten representatives of businesses in San Diego that would be willing to participate in the annual trade fair in February. We found many willing Graduate Students of the business program that were willing to participate as mentors/tutors for these students. In conclusion to our success we expanded the student’s minds about the subject of business that hopefully taught them something they can use in the future.