The Smeal Executive MBA Team Blog

I was pretty excited during an interview with a candidate this week when I asked him what has made him so successful, and his first answer was integrity.  Later that night I went through my notes of my interviews for the week and found that while most of the prospective students I spoke with counted integrity as something that made them successful, no one led with it. 

I found that exciting for a number of reasons, but mainly because it is further evidence to me that integrity is making a come back. Not only is it making a comeback in corporate america - it is becoming a focus at business school across the nation.  But no where is that focus larger than at Penn State’s Smeal College of Business where since 2006 our MBA students and EMBA students have been signing an honor code - agreeing to integrate honesty, integrity, and accountability as foundational elements of the Smeal MBA experience. Today, as new MBA and EMBA students enter the program, they pledge to adhere to the tenets of the Smeal Honor Code and to hold their classmates accountable, too.  To learn more about honor and integrity at Smeal click here.