God and Mammon at Harvard

The school hasn't always avoided the intersection of faith and business. In 1994, then dean Ronald Thiemann founded the Center for the Study of Values in Public Life, dedicated to exploring how the divinity school could connect to broader ethical issues being discussed within the university. The initiative meant HDS took the public responsibility of religion seriously and welcomed input from other quarters. "Anybody who wanted to cross boundaries in their professional lives could do so here," Thiemann says.

By 2001, however, the program hit the skids. Thiemann attributes the center's demise to quintessentially Harvard-like reasons: the inability to find a first-rate candidate schooled in both religion and economics to lead it, and the lack of an identifiable body of scholarship worth studying. And there's some merit to the argument. Should the focus be on ethics, values, spirituality? World religions and their implications for the multinational corporation or the culturally diverse workforce? Are the issues weighty enough to merit study in a curriculum heavy on Kant and Kierkegaard? "This is the sort of thing that can generate interesting conferences," says Thiemann, "but it's harder to make it take deeper root in the culture of a divinity school." Others attribute the collapse to a more unsettling development. In 1999, Thiemann was forced to step down as dean when pornography was allegedly found on his university-owned computer, and the center floundered without his advocacy.

Strangely, the Harvard Business School faculty now seem more comfortable addressing issues of values, ethics, and social responsibility than their colleagues on the other side of the Yard. "I think there's an acknowledgment here that this is a big force in leaders' lives," says HBS's Nash. Still, the pressure is mounting to have some institutional response to the topic. In a speech before the divinity school in September 2002, Harvard president Lawrence Summers threw out this challenge to the assembled faculty: "If some of the most vexing questions in our public life have religious dimensions, we should foster active and vital collaborations between ethicists from the divinity school and faculty from the business school on newly pressing questions of professional ethics."

From Boeing to WorldCom, the ethics questions certainly don't seem to be going away. But nearly three years after Summers issued it, some critics say there's little evidence that his challenge has been addressed. The school has also been surprisingly slow to address the related issue of social entrepreneurship. "There seems to be a population of businesspeople out there eager to bring their religion more deeply into their working life," says Nash. "But within the formal divinity schools there's been very little preparation of the faculty and seminarians to answer this need. Universities are more conservative than business, so businesspeople started creating their own study groups, support groups, and prayer groups."

Tom Chappell, however, is confident that the school will address these issues appropriately -- and soon. Chappell, who serves on the Dean's Council, says the divinity school is at a crossroads. By fall, there will be a number of new faculty positions, giving the dean an opportunity to take the school in a new direction. "The divinity school wants to keep its traditions and roots, but it will be reaching out to be more inclusive of the professions," Chappell says. From his lips to God's ears.

Linda Tischler is a Fast Company senior writer.