Daryl Koehn's appointment as the Wicklander Chair in Business Ethics this past July marks a DePaul University homecoming for the professor and author.
Koehn taught philosophy at DePaul from 1991 through 1998 and was the 1997-98 Wicklander Chair when the post was a rotating, one-year appointment. She left DePaul to become the Cullen Chair in Business Ethics at the University of St. Thomas in Texas, and subsequently taught business ethics at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her return to Chicago as Wicklander Chair, an endowed appointment that is no longer a rotating position, also finds her serving as managing director of DePaul’s Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. She succeeds Patricia Werhane, who retired from both positions last spring.
Koehn said she welcomes the chance to lead ethics education and outreach efforts at the nation's largest Catholic university because, she says, Catholic universities "take ethics seriously."
"DePaul is well-known for its many ethics initiatives, serving not only students and faculty members, but also the community at large," she says.
One of her priorities is to see the center develop expertise in the fast-growing area of benefit corporations, a new legal form for business entities that explicitly permits managers and boards to focus on benefiting a wide array of stakeholders, not just stockholders. "I think that alumni and the business community can provide useful insight into ways that DePaul can help benefit corporations, and also help refine the notion of 'ethical business culture,'" Koehn says.
Koehn earned her PhD, MA and BA in philosophy from the University of Chicago, an MBA from Northwestern University and an MA in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University. She has authored or edited seven books on subjects that range from global ethics to the nature of evil.
Learn more about DePaul's Institute for Business and Professional Ethics.