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For almost a decade, President Eaton has made a commitment that SPU would be active in the work of the surrounding city. He brings his eight years in business and nearly 30 years in higher education to his involvement in the downtown Seattle business community.

I LOVE BUSINESS. Though some people don’t like to think of it that way, Seattle Pacific University is a business. We have a good-size budget, many great employees, a huge physical plant to maintain and lots of people who pay a precious price for what we have to offer. And so I spend countless hours thinking about how to maximize resources and revenues in order to invest wisely in the vision and the people of this great university. I love this part of my work.

Of course, I lay awake at night thinking about the risks, too, the damage or danger we might encounter from dumb or sloppy business decisions. I am so grateful that I am surrounded by people who know this part of my work even better than I do, people who know business and who care as well about realizing our vision. I think it is a matter of integrity that we do our business well.

But what does it mean to do business well? We have many models around these days of how to do business badly, harmfully. Breaches of integrity and honesty, manipulation and misuse of people and resources, overwhelming greed and ambition, unchecked power — when these things happen, business gets a bad name. Good people in business grow ashamed. Students begin choosing other career paths.

Let me be quick to say that business has no inherent corner on greed or ambition or power. Of course, we can focus with disgust on the CEOs and CFOs who abuse their power. But then there are the Catholic priests and Protestant evangelists who violate a sacred trust; there are scholars who plagiarize and scientists who alter their data; unbelievably there are teachers who seduce teenage students and pilots who get on their planes drunk — real people are hurt badly when something vital and foundational is broken and violated. And so we only have to take a look around to know that business is part of a larger culture that seems out of whack, and somewhere deep down the fundamentals need attention.

One of our business professors, Randy Franz, said recently, “In our times there can be no greater leverage point, no more strategic place to engage the culture or change the world, than in the realm of business.” I think he is right. Randy is a member of the team of faculty in our School of Business and Economics envisioning “another way of doing business.” Our faculty is saying that the solution to the scandals in business is not to sit on the sidelines casting stones, but rather to craft a vision for doing things differently.

So what does it mean to do business diferently? What does it mean to do our business well at Seattle Pacific University? I am convinced we have to dig down to the fundamentals, down beneath the layers of expertise that help us do business successfully, important as these skills are, down there where we examine our motives, down there where we are exploring the big ideas of integrity, goodness, human nature, dignity, the common good, honesty, trust, beauty, civility — those kinds of things. This is the territory where we can do the good work, and the hard work, of crafting a vision about doing business well.

For me, business is all about investing in a worthy vision. Most business leaders I know want to invest in such a vision. They want to make a difference in the lives of their employees. They want to produce something beautiful and worthwhile. They want to return something to their communities. I believe my father worked hard to do his business well, but so often I came to understand he did his business primarily so he could give away his money to other Christians who were trying to make the world a better place.

Perhaps at an even deeper level, the key is all about trying to be good people. It is about character formation. It is about understanding, beneath all of the complexities of shades of gray, that there is something we can call right and wrong, and good people choose right. Honesty and integrity matter. It is about understanding that people matter, that civility is a choice, that kindness is possible, that good manners can change an organization — indeed, that good manners can change the world.

I have long argued that scandals in business will never be solved with more laws or more regulations. The key lies with character. Ultimately, the money part of business is a tool we must learn to use skillfully and responsibly, a point of leverage through which we can accomplish a worthy vision, and that takes good people. Ultimately, I believe character matters.

And so I do love doing business, and I am grateful to the people who counsel us on how we do our business: our competent staff , our thoughtful faculty, our experienced trustees and friends. In our work at SPU, in our business, it is critical that we do our business well, because this is another way of modeling to the world that something is different here. Perhaps this is another way we can help chart a path toward changing this part of our world.

— BY PHILIP W. EATON, PRESIDENT
— PHOTO BY JIMI LOTT

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The Falcon Legends Athletic Hall of Fame inducted the Class of 2004, including a celebrated coach and four honored athletes. [Athletics]

My Response
Professor Rick Steele writes a letter to SPU community members about the “divine grace” he and his daughter, Sarah, experienced at “The Sacred Sounds of Christmas.”