Nist Addresses International Corporate Social Responsibility Conference

Thomas J. Nist, director of graduate programs for the John F. Donahue School of Business and the Donahue Chair in Investment Management, was the sole American invited to address an international conference on corporate social responsibility in Germany.

Nist presented three sessions at the FOM Hochschule fur Oekonomie & Management in Cologne. At the April 18 discussion on global sustainability, Nist presented Update From the USA: Key Issues and Debates Inside the American Sustainability Agenda. He also delivered Sustainability in Finance: Can Finance Practitioners Be Held Accountable to a Sustainability Agenda?, examining how the finance discipline might address corporate sustainability agendas.

On April 19, Nist discussed Sustainability in Graduate Management Education: A Case Study, providing information on Duquesne’s highly regarded MBA Sustainability program. The yearlong, full-time degree has received recognition from the Aspen Institute as one of the world’s top 25 programs for integrating social, environmental and financial stewardship since 2007 for its values-based curriculum and delivery.

For the April conference, participating organizations also included Deloitte, Johnson & Johnson Corporate Citizenship Trust, University College Dublin, African Graduate School of Management and Leadership and Cracow University of Economics, among others.

Duquesne has previously partnered with FOM, with University students visiting the campus during the MBA Sustainability program study abroad segment. Visiting FOM faculty members have been hosted on campus.

Founded by industrial associations, FOM is a practice-oriented university for working professionals that addresses key management issues by transferring knowledge between universities and businesses. International cooperatives have been established with institutions in the Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Spain, the Netherlands and elsewhere.