Dixie State University Business and Ethics Forum

Dixie State University’s Udvar-Hazy School of Business continues its bi-monthly noontime Business and Ethics Forum series for the 2014 spring semester on Thursday, March 6, featuring a presentation by Dixie Leavitt, founder of the Leavitt Group. 

Leavitt opened his first insurance office in Cedar City back in 1952, and along with his brother, Bert, incorporated Leavitt Insurance Agency in Las Vegas in 1959. Currently, the Leavitt Group has over 115 locations throughout the western United States and locations in the Southeast, and is the seventh-largest privately held insurance broker in the nation. A native of Bunkerville, Nev., Leavitt is a graduate of then-Branch Agricultural College (now Southern Utah University), and served in the Utah State Legislature for 18 years. 

The series will continue March 20, with a presentation by Bryan Thiriot, executive director for the Five County Association of Governments, and Joel Deceuster, marketing strategist for the St. George Area Chamber of Commerce, will wrap up the semester schedule with a presentation April 10.

The DSU Business and Ethics Forum is held every other Thursday throughout the fall and spring semesters, with each guest lecturer speaking on business matters in their respective professions and how ethics are introduced into the discussion.

The bi-monthly forum, along with campus’ Institute for Business Integrity, was created by former DSU president Dr. Robert Huddleston in 2006, as a way to integrate ethics into the curriculum, and have it serve as a blueprint to ensure that students graduate with a set of ethical tools to help them get along in the professional world.

In 2006-07, Dixie State’s business program sought initial accreditation with the high profile Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). In order to become accredited with the AACSB, ethics were required to be integrated into the college’s business curriculum. As a result, each business class on the DSU campus now includes an ethical component.

Dr. Huddleston noted that the business forums will give students – and current and prospective local business owners – an added dose of ethics training that is so sorely needed into today’s business world. His hope is that by the time students leave Dixie State, they have been exposed to enough ethical cases that, when they get out in the workforce, they will have the wherewithal and the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing, even when their job might be on the line. 

“The Institute for Business Integrity has brought an important opportunity for the business community, as well as DSU faculty and students, to emphasize the significance of social responsibility for business and industry in Washington County,” said Huddleston. “As research indicates, ethics contribute to employee commitment, investor loyalty, customer satisfaction and to profits.”

The Dixie State University Institute for Business Integrity is a partnership between the DSU Udvar-Hazy School of Business, the Small Business Development Center, the Washington County Economic Development Council, and the St. George Area Chamber of Commerce.