Leadership in a Global Context
By Dr. J. Bonner Ritchie*
Scholars and organizational participants
have regarded leadership as the most important, most
studied. and least understood variable in the complex
world of organizational dynamics in business,
government, religion, military, education, family, or
voluntary organizations. Considering the pervasive
role of leadership, the increasing visibility and public
scrutiny of leaders, the short tenure of so many
leaders in the business sector, and the call in the
public media for real leaders to step forward,
reexamining this mystical topic seems appropriate.
While my primary focus is about leadership
in general, 1 will cite examples from different
contexts, especially the Middle East. Personal
experience as a visiting professor and consultant with
educational, governmental and business organizations
in Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt provides this
perspective. Leaders are changing frequently in that
part of the world, and the conditions under which
they must lead are always challenging.
As we explore the definition, meaning, and
application ofleadership concepts, it is important to
note that I am not proposing a universal set of
leadership principles. Different strategies and
techniques, which may be appropriate in one context
and not in another, exist. Different leaders
successfully use very different approaches in similar
situations. Yet other examples of people using the
same approach in different settings may result in
failures.
The reasons for this difference of outcomes
are simple, even if the solution is complex.
Situations, people, culture, tasks, skills, and goals are
all very diverse; and the right match-up of leadership
behavior with the situation involves a subtle
multivariate matrix. Perspectives that provide a
different way of thinking about the phenomenon and
may help in understanding leadership and in
accepting responsibility for becoming better leaders
include the following framework considerations:
Leadership Is about People
A classic cartoon portrays an executive
coming home after a hard and discouraging day.
Clearly frustrated with lack of performance by the
employees of the organization, he says, "I've fired
them all, all 2,437 of them. I'm gonna go it alone."
have found this to be the attitude of too may managers
26
and people in general- th,e idea that they would have
a wonderful life if it just were not for the people.
Some professors say, "Beiing a university professor
would be a great job if it were not for the students."
Both professors and managers are missing
something very simple amd very critical in that
analysis. Missing is wh~,t teaching and leadership
are all about-developing people. Such people also
say, ''1fyou want a job done right, do it yourself."
"Doing it alone" is a formula for failure for any
leader. The people are tlae only reason for the job.
That's what leaders do-they work with, support,
inspire and develop people. You don't lead money
or machines. You manage these things, but you lead
people.
King Hussein of Jordan illustrated this
point. His wife, Queen Noor, was asked to explain
the leadership secret of the King. She answered,
"His Majesty knows all the important people; but he
also knows all the unimportant people." By
"unimportant" she meant those who were not in
formal positions of power or influence. Knowing the
important people is an obvious characteristic of
successful leaders, but knowing and relating to the
people who are not so visible is a special art that
creates enormous power.
Leadership Is Action
ln a Peanuts cartoon Lucy asks Linus what
love is. After Linus giv,es a careful theoretical
definition, Lucy says, "On paper he's great." Many
people are great leaders on paper but are not very
good on the ground-not very good in dealing with
real humans; they're only good in talking and
writing about leadership. When I was an Army
officer in Germany marny years ago, we had a young
lieutenant who was "gu1ng-ho" and reaJly looked the
part. The commander writing bis efficiency report
said, "Lieutenant Black is an exceptjonal officer. He
has all the characteristics of a good leader; his only
problem is that he can't get the troops to do what he
wants them to do." What the commander was really
saying, of course, is that the lieutenant only looked
good (his uniform was dean and pressed, his shoes
shined, and his hair cut); but he did not know bow
to support or influence members of bis platoon. Be
suspicious of those who offer a facade, who look the
part or talk a good line without the substance. The
only value, the only tes1t of leadership is what
UVSC SCHOOL OF BUSINESS JOURNAL- SPRING 2002
happens on the ground-what happens to the
people-how their values are chang,ed, how their
behavior is in fluenced, and how results are obtained.
Leadership Is Looking at Things from Many
Perspectives-Developing New Paradigms
Most people look at life from their own
perspective. Leaders must make an effort to
understand the perspectives ofthos:e who are in need
of sensitive and effective leadership. Leaders seldom
understand completely how others see things- but
having multiple perspectives allows the leader to
approximate such a view. lf peopl1e feel the leader is
really trying to see things from their perspective, they
will be more willing to listen and follow.
To understand more, visu:alize a pyramid to
represent an organization. Normallly the pyramid has
the apex at the top, as in an organization chart with
the boss at the top. But, looking at the pyramid with
the apex at the bottom rather than the top suggests a
different paradigm that can be instructive. With the
apex at the top, the leader is seen a1s in a commandand-
control position with respect to the rest of the
organization. While control is not always bad, of
course, an alternate leadership-relationship dimension
illustrates how powerful top-down control can be.
With the apex at the bottom, the leader is seen
supporting the organization rather than controlling
from the top.
In this configuration, the leader's role is to
understand the needs, strengths, and weaknesses of
the people and then take whatever action is needed to
prepare the people to accomplish tli:le task. Such
understanding may include training, disciplining,
changing rewards, providing infonmation, giving
encouragement, and restructuring the organization.
The point is simply to align the vairious aspects of the
organization in order to be more effective. Often the
view from the bottom is much more helpful than the
view from the top in attaining this insight.
While J am not suggesting we do away with
management, I am suggesting we emphasize
leadership. We need both in the a1ppropriate
functions. Controlling (managing) money, inventory,
facilities, information, etc., is cruc.ial; but, at the
same time, there is a greater need 1to support and
develop people (leadership) to become managers.
UVSC SCHOOL OF BUSINESS JOURNAL-SPRING 2002
Leadership Is Not for the Purpose oflocreasing
Personal Power
While personal power may help people and
organizations become more effecti ve. such power
needs to be seen as a means, not as a personal end.
Personal power is often a tempting leadership
strategy to see just how much you can influence
others to agree with you or to obey you. Often this is
only a test of the leader's power at the expense of the
needs of the people or organization. Simply
imposing your will is usually evidence of leadership
fa ilure. And, if you have to resort to violence in
order to save the orgainization (such as police actiion
or war), you must ask where leadership fai led. \~o
created the situation where human dignity was not
respected or where people were exploited? Whern an
evil leader abuses people, force against that leade,r
must be used in order to restore justice and freedom.
But, somewhere leadership failed.
In the fragile peace process between the
Israelis and Palestinians, when negotiations go well,
we talk about the vision and courage of leaders. On
the other hand, when the process fails, we blame the
leaders-so often we impute that the leaders are n,ot
serving the best interest of their people.
Leadership is not a game on an
organizational playground. So often the personal
competition for position influences leaders to try to
win even at the expense of organizational
performance. Leaders rationalize that they are
serving the organization's best interest, but the
motive is more likely the arrogance of power.
Leadership Is Personal Growth and Change
Calvin states in a Calvin and Hobbs cartoon
that he "thrives on change." When Hobbs
challenges him with evidence of his own rigidity, he
replies, ''I thrive on making other people change .. "
Many people define their job or goal in life as
making other people change. While there may be a
noble objective in this position, if the criterion is
truly helping others to make their lives better, there
is also great danger. The question is whether the
change is in the general interest of the people and
organization, or just in the leader's self-interest.
When a leader defines and demonstrates a
commitment to personal growth and development,
people see a role model for improvement rather than
a manipulative effort. With the pace of expanding
knowledge and continually changing environments,
27
leaders must develop a ''learning organizational
culture' ' for themselves and also for organization
members. A learning organization however, must
not be forced. A culture needs to encourage and
reward honest and productive learning and
development. When leaders feel "somebody else
needs to change" in order to make the organization
better, the leader is trapped in the role rather that
making the role serve the people. Every day the
leader needs to be better than yesterday- to do
something more creatively or efficiently than
yesterday and permit others in the organization to do
the same.
Leadership Is Learning from Others
All of us need different vantage points in
order to see the situation (and ourselves) more clearly.
While our view will never be completely objective, we
can at least approximate a more objective perspective
as we learn from others. As we ask them how they
see us and how they see the situation, we acquire this
perspective. No leader can adequately observe the
world alone-the organization, the environment, the
people, and the task are aU so complex and dynamic
that multiple inputs are essential.
The "Great Man Theory" of leadership-a
concept based on the assumption that organizations
needs a charismatic "great man" who performs all the
essentiaJ leadership functions-is inadequate in a
modem organjzation. Great leaders illustrate this
role-religious, military, political, and business-with
the assumption that conditions today are similar; but
conditions today are different. While we certainly
have impressive leaders today, more likely the leaders
are strong supporters of, and dependent on, the inputs
and creativity of many others. At the very least, we
all need another person that says, "Did you ever think
of that?" "Are you sure you have the relevant facts?"
So we find another vantage point or see through
someone's eyes in order to understand the
organization from a fresh perspective.
Leadership and Maps
Leadership is a map. Use a map with south
at the top as an illustration of the role of leadership.
Consider the hypothesis that your ability to be a good
leader is correlated with your ability to draw the map
with south at the top and NOT call it upside-down.
Different messages come for this illustration. We
must look at the organization differently. Individuals
look at the map from their own perspective; and every
perspective includes the bias of the map maker, the
people whose area is included in the map, and those
who use the map.
28
Each paradigm is idiosyncratic. Individuals
have a view of an organization that is influenced or
limited by something in their experience, their
theories, their perspective, their knowledge, their
intellectual ability, their race, their gender, their
religion, and their political or social background. A
"revised" map shows a fascinating bias that I hadn't
fully considered until someone showed me a map of
the Americas with south at the top. At first, my
reaction was one of interest, curiosity, and fun; but
my perspective was expanded considerably when a
group of executives from South America applauded
the·map. Why does someone applaud a map? I
realized that alJ maps have a point of reference-a
certain projection that is never absolutely and
universally accurate. The map is not the territory- it
is never real because the map is aJways an
abstraction and is always contrived.
In the same way, leaders who only look at
the organization from their own point of view, using
their own maps will create a small, or perhaps a
very large, distortion. Leaders need to look from the
point of view of the people who really do the
work-the assembly line, the student in the class, the
citizen in the country, or the member of the
religious or political group. So, you need to be able
to draw the map with south at the top. Talk to
people who articulate a "Southern Perspective." The
views of those living south of the equator are
superior. Their assumptions about north and what
those in the North think about them is an important
part of a revised view of the world and
organizations. The same analogy can be used for an
organizational chart.
Another geographical perspective results
from my spending a lot of time in what we generaJly
call the Middle East. As we move from West to East
through that part of the world, we use the terms
"Near-, Middle-, and Far-East." Some people in
those regions do not like being referenced by how far
they are from somewhere or which direction they are
from. (i.e., where they live compared to Western
Europe). While most people do not feel that Middle
East is a pejorative term, a more precise and accurate
term in describing different racial, religious, or
national groups is really appreciated. The
appropriateness and power of"Palestinian,"
"Jordanian," "Arab," ''Israeli," "Jew," "Muslim,"
and "Christian Arab" when used in the right context
is an important part of building a constructive
relationship. A powerful leadership perspective
involves identifying people by who they really are
and not what they are called. Assuming, often by
UVSC SCHOOL OF BUSINESS JOURNAL- SPRING 2002
default, that one particular perspective is the one
everyone ought to have--and if they don't they are
either uninformed, evil, or just being difficult--is not
correct.
Leadership Is Often Painful, and Often Fun
An upper-level manager stated that, for him,
the biggest challenge of leadership is the "bad news"
responsibility. The process of giving honest, negative
feedback, including termination, creates a great deal
of pain. The decisions that must be made, the ethical
dilemmas that must be resolved, the people who must
be disciplined, and the many lives that are affected,
will inevitably cause a leader to struggle with values,
conscience, and strategy. Leadership is a very
difficult, demanding, and costly responsibility.
On the other hand, as many leaders have
learned (parents, for example) there is clearly a time
where leadership can, and should be, a great deal of
fun. Making organizations effective, helping people
grow, enjoying the success of others, and solving
difficult problems is very rewarding and fun. But,
the fun usually comes after much bard work-even
pain.
Leadership and Metaphors
[n many respects leaders are philosophers.
Leaders identify and teach culture, values, and vision;
and leaders use metaphors to accomplish this. Bad
leaders teach people to be selfish and racist; but good
leaders teach people how to be just, fair, and
competent- and how to build a better future. I learned
the power of metaphors in this process when I was
working with the Palestinian leadership in
preparation for the Oslo negotiations with Israel.
Suha Arafat, recently married to Yassir Arafat, said
that since the 1960s Yassir bad been married to the
PLO. ''Now," she said, "he is married to me. And,
we are going to have children. Our children must
grow up in peace in Palestine. Therefore, it is time to
get on with the peace process." The power of this
metaphor-children- is that it creates a transcendent
value system. She was referring to literal children
(her first child, Zahwa, was born six months later),
but the metaphor focuses us on the future. Leaders
need to build a better world for the children. When
Rabin and Arafat signed the Oslo Accords at the
White House, they both evoked the symbol or
metaphor of children needing and deserving peace.
Metaphors are ennobling. Family, nature,
religious, and artistic metaphors can all evoke
positive values; but, we need to avoid those that
UVSC SCHOOL OF BUSINESS JOURNAL - SPRING 2002
employ fighting and vengeance-those that create
unnecessary hosti lity, hate, or intolerance for others
who may be different. In this process, leaders create
organizational culture; and, conversely, they destroy
bad cultures. Leaders,;fail when they who play on
historical animosities or fan the flames of intolerance
by demeaning or belittling others in order to enhance
their own power. When little communication and
tolerance occur, it takes a leader with courage to
play a transcendent role. Sometimes a martyr's
reward comes to those who try. We look at people
like Sadat and Rabin who overcame decades of
conflict in order to pursue peace but died at the
hands of intolerant zealots. Children are so often the
victims of adult power, intransigence, and bias.
Using the symbol of children to encourage the peace
process was an original motive, and I am confident
it will be a major force in bringing the parties back
to the negotiating table.
Conclusions
As a personal challenge, each ofus might
ask how we can become better leaders ourselves or
how we can help others become more effective in
their leadership roles. In this process, while there
are no simple secrets or gimmicks, I have suggested
some perspectives that, if carefully considered, could
help us think through the complex process. A
desperate need exists in our modern world for
leaders who can provide a higher vision- leaders who
can help organizations and people achieve their
noble aspirations. By asking better questions,
listening to appropriate people, articulating dreams,
developing workable strategies, and educating our
efforts to support rather than contro.l others, we can
move closer to the kind of organization, country, or
family that will make the world a better place.
*Dr. J. Bonner Ritchie,
Acting Dean--
School of Business,
Utah Valley State College
29

Utah Valley University Awards of Excellence Banquet
March 27, 2012
J Bonner Ritchie
J. Bonner Ritchie is an institution in the field of international organi zatio nal behavior and
an important figure in the growth of UVU's Woodbury School of Business, which is now
the largest business school in the Utah System of Higher Education. Prior to joining UVU
in 2001, Ritchie was on the faculty at BYL for 27 years and the faculty at the University of
Michigan for six years before that.
The Presidential Award winner for lifetime se rvice, Ritchie boasts an impressive academic
record, personally mediated peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine and has served
as a management consultant to some of the world's largest organizations. In 2001, Ritchie
came out of retirement to help build UVC's business school in the run-up to university
status. Many of UVU's faculty and ad mini strators can trace their academic hi story through
Ritchie's teachings in leadership, conflict resolution, organizational philosophy and many
other topics.
Ritchie and his wife, Lois, have been married for nearly 30 years and together have four
children and eight grand children. He enjoys reading, travel and caring for the hundreds of
plants he keeps at home.
Awards of Excellence /// 15

UVU: Awards in Excellence 2012 – J. Bonner Ritchie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naGieTYwQWI&t=2484s
[Matthew Holland, President, Utah Valley University]: Well, we'll now move to our final Presidential Award of Excellence winner, J. Bonner Ritchie. I was a point of personal privilege I took to reverse the order so that we could end with Dr. Ritchie who's impact, it's hard for me to explain both institutionally and personally. Dr. Ritchie is internationally respected for his academic work in organizational behavior. In addition to this academic work, he's recognized for a very human and real contribution in terms of mediating peace negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, and has served as a management consultant to some of the largest organizations in the world and some of our most significant CEOs. In 2001, he came out of retirement to become a scholar in residence at UVU, just at the time we needed critical help with our business school and the march towards university status, and his fingerprints are all over those contributions.
On a more personal note, I have to say that Bonner has been my teacher and given my life's choices and career, there's no higher compliment I think I could pay to a human being. There's no way for me to fully convey my appreciation to him, the role he's had on my life as a thinker, as a writer, as a leader, as a citizen, a contributor, a member of civic and church groups, his influences is everywhere in my life. And so, I'll invite him to come forward and I know what doing here, but I may regret it. I'm going to actually let him take the mic afterwards so everyone prepare themselves!
[Norm Wright, Dean, Woodbury School of Business]: Almost as far back as I can remember, I have recollections of my father, speaking of someone named Bonner Ritchie in almost reverential tones. He was full of admiration for the work that Bonner was doing in making holistic sense of a tough situation in the Middle East. Later in life, I had the privilege of getting to know Bonner personally, first as an admiring college student, and later as a colleague and friend. I've come to better understand my father's admiration for Bonner [. . .] through this nomination. Professor Riche has been serving as the Distinguished Professor in the Woodbury School of Business. He is also Professor Emeritus of International Organizational Behavior at the Romney Institute of Public Management, Marriott School of Management, at BYU. Receiving his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, he served on the faculty of the University of Michigan from 1967 to 1973, and on the BYU faculty from 1973 to 2000. Professor Ritchie has had visiting appointments at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, Birzeit University in Palestine, the University of Jordan, and the University of Southern Europe.
During the 1989 to 90 year, he was a visiting scholar at BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies where he began a lifelong labor of love promoting peace in the Middle East. In addition to being a peacemaker, Bonner is a great teacher. Not a week goes by that I do not hear from somebody speaking of how they were influenced by Bonner's teaching. At Brigham Young University, he was named Honors Professor of the Year twice, received the Exxon Teaching Excellence Award, and was given the Maeser Distinguished Teaching Award. In the Marriott School of Management he received the Outstanding Faculty Award and the William G. Dyer Distinguished Alumni Award. Professor Ritchie's Consulting Management programs and publications are in the areas of leadership development, conflict resolution, managerial decision-making, international
management, economic development, organizational philosophy, and ethics. He has conducted management development programs at the University of Michigan, the University of California, Stanford University, and BYU.
Professor Ritchie has worked with many public, private, and volunteer organizations such as General Motors, AT&T, Southwestern Bell, Pacific Telesis, Exxon, Enron, General Food, Citibank, the Arab Bank Banking Corporation, The Department of Defense, The Navajo Tribal Council, Shell Canada, the Canadian Hospital Association, Save the Children Foundation, Hewlett Packard, the Southern Federation of Cooperatives, the Royal Bank of Canada, and The State of Utah. Most recently, his efforts have focused on working with The Palestinian Authority on developing an effective working government in the West Bank and Gaza with universities in Palestine and Jordan, with the governments of Jordan and Egypt, and on The Middle East Peace Process. Upon retiring from Brigham Young University, Dr. Ritchie found one more way in which he could give back to his community. Starting in 2001, he joined UVSC to help guide the institution on its path to becoming a university.
Over the past 11 years, he has served as a Scholar in Residence and as the Interim Dean of the Business School. During that time, he has played a key role in strengthening the business faculty, advising presidents of the university, and serving as a public face for the serious nature of our institution. In playing these roles, Bonner has provided sound advice based on experience and study, while also allowing colleagues, deans and presidents the room they needed to grow and govern in their responsibilities. For a lifetime of distinguished service in pursuit of creating more effective relationships between people and their organizations, and in particular for his magnificent service to our fledgling university, I congratulate Dr. Bonner Ritchie on this award. You are every bit the man my father told me you were.
[Matthew Holland, President, Utah Valley University]: I failed to mention that this category is for lifetime service and it's truly lifetime service to this institution and to education in general. And as I said, it may be against my better judgment, I'm going to let him take the podium here. The other day, he was being referred to as Dr. Ritchie by someone and someone listening said, “well, you're not a doctor.” And his granddaughter said, “yes, you're a doctor of words.” So if you can limit this to 500 or less, which may be impossible, but I thought it would be appropriate to have him do this, not only as the reflection on a lifetime of service, and a kind of summing up statement of sorts, but it's his last semester teaching at UVU. And it's just hard, frankly, to even think about Bonner Ritchie not teaching, that's like Scotland without rain, or Big Macs without Special Sauce. It just doesn't seem to compute, and yet that's where he finds himself. And so, with that, I'd love to have him take just a few words to share with us tonight.
[Dr. J. Bonner Ritchie:] As the senior recipient of awards tonight, let me thank the Trustees, and President's Office, and all of you. You for honoring us with their acknowledgement attempts to make a difference. I'm deeply honored and appreciative of this honor. I was thinking as Ian was here, and Matt, if Ian and Matt had just listened a little more carefully in class, they would've amounted to something! [Laughter] I saw hope in these guys, and they've done reasonably well. [Laughter] But I just think, what more could we have done here? [Laughter]
I appreciate the fact that I've never had a job. I spent a lifetime learning, teaching, serving some of the most special people on earth, and I'm honored to be identified as a teacher. I've had 23,000 students that have gone through my classes over the years, and I've learned so much from each one of them. And if I were to take advantage of Matt's invitation, I would talk about what I've learned from my colleagues and friends, but especially from my students. They've changed my life in so many ways and I appreciate the opportunity they've had to help UVU get off the ground. Norm was a little overly-complimentary in his statement of my contribution, but it has been really fun and really rewarding to see this institution grow, and to work with faculty and hire many, John Westover among the group, and to try and aspire to something greater than just a school where people go to graduate and get a job, but to really make a difference in the world. So Trustees, President, all of you, thank you so much, and thanks for all of us who have been honored this evening, for the opportunity to make a difference in this institution.
Thank you.

UVSC college times
the college times • monday september 24, 2001
Dealing with the tragedy
ANDREW GREEN/NETXNEWS
Brad Cook. Faird Islam, J. Bonner Ritchie, and Masoud Kaemadeh addressed UVSC students on September 19 concerning the recent
terrorist attacks. They urged UVSC to avoid discriminating against Islams. Brad Cook said that terror has no religion and our
main enemy is ignorance. The panel encouraged UVSC students to keep informed of the progressing evidence but no be paralyzed by
the incident. He also said, "There is a warm courage of National unity."

Symposium on
Religious Pluralism
and Democracy
jointly sponsored by the UVU Center for the Study of Ethics, J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace & Justice (Peace & Justice Studies Program),
The UVU Appomattox Project, Center for Constitutional Studies, Religious Studies Program, and the Rocky Mountain Seminar for Early American History
Religious diversity is at the heart of ethical debates surrounding democratic culture, peace, and civil
society. We live in a world in which religious pluralism is deeply contested. The escalation of violence
against religious minorities threatens to undermine core democratic values of tolerance, respect for
difference, and interfaith dialogue. This interdisciplinary conference will engage the intersection of
religious diversity and democracy from historical, legal, ethical, and peacebuilding perspectives.
10:00 - 11:15 a.m.
“Religious Toleration & Diversity: Framing a History”
Evan Haefeli, Associate Professor of History, Texas
A&M University
11:30 - 12:45 p.m.
“Joseph Smith’s Religious Liberty, and Ours”
Benjamin Park, Assistant Professor of History, Sam
Houston State University
2:30 - 3:45 p.m.
“Towards an Empathetic Politics: Structural Injustice,
Democratic Practices, and the Development of the
Egalitarian Personality”
Carol Gould, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy,
Hunter College & the Graduate Center Director, Center
for Global Ethics & Politics, City University of New York
4:00 - 5:15 p.m.
Panel Discussion
Thursday, March 29th
10:00 - 10:50 a.m.
“American Civil Religion and Structural Violence”
Richard Rubenstein, Professor of Conflict Resolution and
Public Affairs, George Mason University
11:00 - 11:50 a.m.
“Was the Constitution the Problem? The Politics of Religious
Intolerance in Nineteenth-Century America”
Spencer W. McBride, Historian, Joseph Smith Papers Project
12:00 - 12:50 p.m.
“Religion with Walls: Persecution Narratives as a
Challenge to Pluralism”
Julie Ingersoll, Professor of Religious Studies, University
of North Florida
1:00 - 1:50 p.m.
Brownbag Panel Discussion
2:00 - 3:30 p.m.
Student Workshop
for more information, contact Courtney Burns at courtney.burns@uvu.edu
2018
Schedule of Events
Classroom Building, Room 510-11
Friday, March 30th

UTAH VALLEY
UVU
UNIVERSITY
PEACE AND JUSTICE
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Events
Fifteenth Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

The J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice is an annual conference that brings local, national, and international speakers to campus to speak about cutting-edge thinking, policy, and action regarding important global problems. Each year’s conference focuses on a specific theme, including past themes of Women, War, and Peacebuilding; Peace and Democracy; Sustainable Development; and Religious Pluralism and Democracy. The fifteenth annual conference will be held in April 2020. More information will be posted soon.
Past J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogues on Peace and Justice
The J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice, held annually since 2006, is a discussion about cutting-edge thinking, policy, and action regarding important global problems. Each year a new issue is engaged. We focus not only on the problem but also on the most promising advances to diminish or eliminate specific issues around the world.

2006

First Annual Dialogue on Peace and Justice

George McGovern

2007

Second Annual Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Bobby Muller

2008

Third Annual Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Nuclear Weapons: Dangers and Solutions

March 5-7, 2008

2009

Fourth Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Genocide: Histories, Evils, and Prevention

March 24-25, 2009

2010

Fifth Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

The Israeli Palestinian Conflict - Toward Peace

February 17-18, 2010

2011

Sixth J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Borders: Global and Local, Problems and Possibilities

March 29-31, 2011

2012

Seventh J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

How to Have Hope: Remedies for Calamities across the Global Landscape

March 8 and 20-22, 2012

2013

Eighth J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Climate Change and Violence: How Heating the Planet Creates Conflict and Death

March 21-22, 2013

2014

Ninth Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Sustainable Development: Building Peace, Prosperity, and Human Security in the 21st Century

February 25-26, 2014

2015

Tenth Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Peace and Democracy: Partners in Economics and Justice

2016

Eleventh Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Women, War, and Peacebuilding

March 23-24, 2016

2017

Twelfth Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Globalism and Your Future: The Crisis of Neoliberalism

March 7-9, 2017

2018

Thirteenth Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice: Religious Pluralism and Democracy Symposium

March 29-March 30, 2018

2019

Fourteenth Annual J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice

Intersections of Racism and Sexism: Resurgence and Resistance

March 13-14, 2019

Peace and Justice StudiesLynn.England@uvu.edu(801) 863-8119
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AGENDA
DAY ONE - MARCH 7TH
DAY TWO - MARCH 8TH
DAY THREE - MARCH 9TH
March 7 : CB 510

8:30 Introduction to Conference and Reports from Local NGOs

10:00 Leonardo Figueroa-Helland: Global Crises and Neoliberalism

11:30 Michael Minch: The Neoliberal Attack On Democracy

1:00 Jeff Torlina: What Neoliberalism Means for the US: Problems and Solutions

2:30 Patience Kabamba: Neoliberalism, Or the Fetishism of Merchandise

?

4:00 Q and A with Panel

?

March 8 : CB 510 & 511

Details arriving soon

March 9 : CB 510 & 511

10:00 Thomas Bretz: The Ecological Limitations of Neoliberal Subjectivity

11:30 Susan Merrill: Multinational Corporations, Globalization, and the Calculus of Civil Conflict

1:00 Abigail Perez Aguilera: The Global Crises of Gender Inequality: A Critical Perspective on Genderized Violence

2:30 Macleans Geo Jaja: Liberating Humanity from the Chains of Globalization’s Imperialism

4:00 Q and A with Panel

THE 13TH ANNUAL J. BONNER RITCHIE DIALOGUE ON PEACE AND JUSTICE
Globalism and YouR Future .The Crisis of neoliberalism




MARCH 7-9, 2017
SPEAKERS
Abigail Perez Aguilera
Westminster College, Salt Lake City

-Abigail Pérez Aguilera (PhD, 2016) researches and writes about contemporary Indigenous movements, literature written by women of color and its connections to environmental social movements, forced displacement, gender violence, and global politics. Her most recent work appears in Ecocriticism and Indigenous Studies: Conversations from Earth to Cosmos (ed. Joni Adamson and Salma Monani; Routledge, 2017). She co-organized the recently created Special Interest Group at ASLE on Indigenous Ecocriticism. In the Summer of 2016 she traveled to Peru and Bolivia to conduct field research and establish connections and relationships with different organizations, universities, and environmental justice activists. In the future, she plans to establish a study abroad experience for students at Westminster College. She is currently working on a translation of poetry and short stories by indigenous women in Mexico and Guatemala.

Jeff Torlina
Associate Professor of Sociology Behavioral Science Department

-Jeff Torlina is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Behavioral Science Department. His Ph.D. is from the State University of New York at Albany in 2003. Jeff has wide-ranging interests and specializes in structured inequality, work, ideology, and theory. A motivating theme across all his research, which is ethnographic and qualitative, is a challenge to prevailing ideologies and theories which devalue members of disadvantaged groups. Jeff teaches courses on political economy, social movements, work and occupations, gender, race, education, theory, agriculture and food systems, and several other subjects. He is a member of the Association for Humanist Sociology, the Working Class Studies Association, the Rural Sociological Society, and the Pacific Sociological Association. Before joining the faculty at UVU Jeff was a construction worker and the owner/operator of a small country store in the Hudson River Valley of New York State with his wife Cathy. He grew up in the Detroit area, and his hobbies involve the outdoors and food cultivation.

Leonardo Figueroa-Helland
Chair and Professor of Politics, Justice, and Global Studies at Westminster College, Salt Lake City

-Dr. Figueroa-Helland is Chair and Professor of Politics, Justice, and Global Studies at Westminster College (Salt Lake City, Utah). His research focuses on critical global studies and international relations, global political ecology, decolonial studies, indigenous cosmopolitics, and world systems analysis. He has published and co-authored in journals across different disciplines such as Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, the UNESCO Journal of Higher Education and Society (co-authored with Abigail Perez Aguilera), and the Journal of Critical Education and Policy Studies (with Abigail Perez Aguilera). His latest articles are forthcoming in the journal Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature (STTCL), the Journal of World Systems Research, Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, and in the edited volume Social Movements and World-System Transformation which will contain his most recent article titled “Indigeneity vs. ‘Civilization’: Indigenous Alternatives to the Planetary Rift”. Dr. Figueroa-Helland has presented his research at different institutions and conferences throughout North and Central America as well as Europe, such as the Political Economy of World Systems Conference, the International Studies Assoc. Conference, the Global Studies Association Conference, the Mexican Assoc. of International Studies Conference, the American Indian Studies Assoc. Conference, the Critical Ethnic Studies Assoc. Conference, the Ethnicity, Race & Indigenous Peoples Conference of the Latin American Studies Assoc., among others. He obtained his PhD in 2012 from the School of Politics & Global Studies at Arizona State University, where he graduated with “distinction” for his dissertation on Indigenous Philosophy and World Politics which he is currently transforming into a book manuscript.

MacLeans A. Geo-Jaja
Professor of Economics and Education, Brigham Young University

-Macleans A. Geo-JaJa is Professor of Economics and Education at Brigham Young University, where he directs the Research Program in Rights in Education, Capabilities Deprivation, and Right to Development. He is currently a Fulbright Senior Specialist Fellow and a Visiting Research Professor at Zhejiang Normal University, china. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Nigerian Think Tank and on numerous journal editorial boards, including the editorial consulting board of International Review of Education a UNESCO journal. Co-author with Majhanovich, Suzanne, on Economics, Aid, and Education; Implication for Development for Development; co-editor with Shizhou Lou; and Yong Y.; of Education, Poverty, and Development in sub-Saharan Africa; co-editor with Majhanovich, Suzanne, of Education, Language and Economics: Growing National and Global Dilemmas; and the Politics of Education Reforms: Globalization, Comparative Education and Policy Research. Professor Geo-JaJa is author or co-author of significant tier one journal articles, and numerous book chapters and others on education and development in Africa.

Michael Minch
Professor of Philosophy, and Peace and Justice Studies at Utah Valley University. Director, Summit: The Sustainable Mountain Development and Conflict Transformation Global Knowledge and Action Network

-Dr. Minch is the founder and director of The Summit Knowledge and Action Network. He is a professor of Political Philosophy at Utah Valley University. He helped found the Peace and Justice Studies Program at UVU, and was its first director for 12 years, stepping down in 2016 to devote more time to Summit. He does research and writes in a wide set of fields, including democratic theory, peacebuilding theory, theories of justice, and reconciliation, and theology. He is now working on a book on the relationship between democracy, morality, and peace that goes beyond conventional democratic peace theory literature. He also does research, teaching, and peacebuilding work in Northern Ireland, Haiti, the Balkans, West Africa, and Russia. Minch is on the Board of Directors of the Peace and Justice Studies Association and the Global Peace Education Forum

Patience Kabamba
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Utah Valley University

- From the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dr. Kabamba earned his Master’s in Development Studies from the University of Durban (South Africa) after his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the Jesuit School of Philosophy in Paris. In addition, he has a Master’s degree in Philosophy from Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium, and a Ph.D. in Socio-Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University. He has taught at leading universities around the world, and worked for the United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank in various countries in sub-Saharan Africa. He is an expert in conflict, development, and governance in Africa. He is now at Utah Valley University.

Susan Merrill
Peace and Justice Studies, Utah Valley University

- Ms. Merrill is an academic and a peacebuilder. She taught at the US Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute, US Army War College; where she also served as Senior Governance Advisor (2007-2009); at the USAWC, she also served as the USAID Professor (2005-2006). Merrill also taught at the Command and General Staff College, Marine Corps, Quantico, Virginia (2006-2007); and for the International Resources Group (2007). She was the Senior Governance Advisor to USAID/Iraq-Baghdad, January-April, 2007; and the Mission Director, Office of General Development, USAID in Cambodia, 2003-2005. She has served in other senior management positions for USAID in Jamaica, Nicaragua, Liberia, El Salvador, Bosnia, and Iraq, serving in over 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. She is Chief of Party, The Mitchell Group, and has run Evaluation and Analytical Services Projects for USAID in various African locations. She directs a $9.0 million project in West Africa, conducting research in democracy, governance, violence, extremism, gender, and peacebuilding. Merrill also teaches at Utah Valley University.

Thomas Bretz
Assistant Professor of Environmental Philosophy, Utah Valley University

-Thomas Bretz is assistant professor for environmental philosophy at Utah Valley University. He received his PhD in philosophy at Loyola University Chicago where he wrote his dissertation on Derrida’s contributions to environmental philosophy. He is currently working on the possibility of developing social and ethical relationships with non-human beings.

During the 1980s, the reaction against global liberation movements began to consolidate. Over the next three decades, as market powers expanded, democracy was diminished and destroyed. The privatizing agenda and growing power of capitalist market power that accompanied these reactive forces has a name. It is Neoliberalism.

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Speaker 1:
Hi, I am Elaine Engelhardt from Utah Valley State. Welcome to class Today. The class is ethics and values and we're beginning our segment on business ethics. Hopefully at the end of each class will show a brief case study that shows an ethical problem happening in a business environment, and we'll discuss it amongst each other showing the value of case study. When looking at business ethics today, I have a brilliant philosopher and professor of business, Bonner. Richie, thanks for joining us Bonner, and we'll get back and get an introduction from you. But let me introduce you to the students first. We have Rhonda and John over here and over here, Kiper and Luke. Thanks so much for being with us. And Dr. Richie, who is our Dean Emerita and Professor Emerita here at Utah Valley State College has spent a lot of time at other universities as well. Do you want to give us your background?
Speaker 2:
How much time do we have?
Speaker 1:
Yeah,
Speaker 2:
I finished my PhD at the University of California Berkeley and then went to teach at the University of Michigan where we were starting a new program in organization behavior. It was a fun time. I was in Detroit during the Detroit riots and the conflicts, the racial issues marched with Martin Luther King and just had a very interesting period from 1967 to 73. Then I came to,
Speaker 1:
You could kind of relate to this montage then, couldn't you?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that looked familiar.
Speaker 1:
I'll bet it did. Yes, and go ahead.
Speaker 2:
Then I went to Brigham Young University and taught there until 2000 when I retired. In the meantime, spent seven years in the Middle East teaching at the University of Jordan and be state university in Palestine and American University of Beirut and in Cairo in Dubai. Had a wonderful experience in solving all the problems of the Middle East and then came here to Utah Valley State and was interim dean for a while trying to change the culture of the business school and get us started on accreditation and now I'm a scholar in residence, which means I just talk and have no responsibility for the consequences of what I say.
Speaker 1:
I think that the students here might just hold your feet to the fire on your comments here. I need that. And the thing about this being the ethics and values class, the students take it by broadcast and so we have to represent to them what a typical class might be and the students here to ask you questions about what we also might find in a typical class,
Speaker 2:
But they're supposed to be polite, right?
Speaker 1:
They're supposed to be polite. And besides that, Bonner is one of the most brilliant people, truly he is so brilliant and has accomplished so much in his life. It's almost a Walter Middy life from the riots in Detroit and other areas to all the work you've done in the Middle East and been involved in peace talks and how you've been able to take organizational behavior ethics and other specialty areas and really make differences in the world. So I can see you're blushing.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you.
Speaker 1:
Today we're going to talk about Adam Smith and Adam Smith has to be talked about. He's going to be the founder then of our modern system of capitalism and we find Adam Smith then being born in Glasgow and even was kidnapped at age four. I hadn't realized that his uncle found him and he was able to grow up in the Wright family, but his father had died when Smith was just six. But he was a brilliant child and went on to the University of Glasgow, Oxford and other places. Tell me some remarkable things about Smith that you enjoy.
Speaker 2:
Just one funny little issue when he was kidnapped by gypsies, his uncle said he had to rescue him because Adam Smith would never make a good gypsy, so we had to get him back from the environment that he couldn't cope with. Adam Smith is general regard as the father of economics. He really wasn't an economist though it's interesting, he was a political philosopher and he was concerned about the behavior of the state and the behavior of governments and he was very critical of much that government did or didn't do. And so he was trying to find a way to make governments more consistent with economic development, with the economic wellbeing, with the utilitarian notion of the maximum good for the maximum number in a larger society. And he was really not very aware or very concerned with the details of economics. It was the larger public good that he was with
Speaker 1:
And just a brilliant man as he started moving through his works and creating a very thick library for all of us on his theories of making money of political philosophy, economic philosophy, and also what I would say is moral sentiments. And in 1959, the piece that truly established his reputation then was a theory of moral sentiments. And I'm actually more familiar with that book than I am Wealth of Nations, which was published in 1776, but we will be reading from Wealth of Nations
today. But truly, I don't think that Smith ever intended for the two books to be separated. I think that he felt like that whenever we were talking about capitalism, about making money, about distribution of labor, we would always be considering morality that we would be doing it with moral sentiments. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:
I agree completely, and one of the problems of human beings is that we pull out of somebody or some theory, a dimension that we like or that we don't like and we make that the whole picture. And that's often done with Adam Smith. He didn't even use the term capitalism and yet he's regarded as the father of capitalism and he really didn't even talk about profit the way most people impute to him. He talked about it in a way of allocating resources more than a motive of an individual. And he didn't justify a lot of the behaviors that people who use him used to justify their exploitive or their money grabbing sort of behaviors. So I agree he's misused as is Karl Marx and lots of other people, but we seldom really read about the person we take what we want from them and make it their theory.
Speaker 1:
I couldn't agree with you more, and I think that's what we find when we put the two works together, theory of Moral Sentiments and when we look at basically is looking at efficiency with wealth of nations. So you students, what comments do you have about Wealth of Nations, about Adam Smith or even questions while you've got one of the brilliant scholars in the area here with you? How about you John?
Speaker 3:
I'm probably guilty of a little bit taking a dimension of Adam Smith and kind of taking that, and I don't have a very high opinion of him, but I do like the way that he's very descriptive at times and I think he was very insightful about the division of labor and the way he describes it I think was very, very insightful, especially at the time that he was writing.
Speaker 2:
I think that's a really good point. He was an observer of the scene and most people before him had not been careful observers. They had been theoretical observers. They wrote what ought to be, they were normative. He was one of the first descriptive. He wasn't well trained for descriptive, but he still did it and opened up a whole new field by doing it. And so I think that's a really important point. He observed the world as carefully as he could with his framework and opened up a way for others who could be more disciplined in their observation and description.
Speaker 1:
And he was quite a perfectionist about this too. He was one of those who would rethink and rewrite and try to get his point across as best he could and even
Speaker 2:
Obsessively protection
Speaker 1:
Perfectionist he was, and even at the end of his life demanded that works be destroyed because he hadn't had time to get them to the place where he wanted them. And I think there are a lot of us who would like to see some of those works. How about you, Rhonda? Thoughts on Smith?
Speaker 4:
Well, Smith in Wealth of Nations is impressive to me because of his being able to think for a lot of people for his being able to distribute wealth, if you must, the wealth that a lot of people were not enjoying at that time. And that doesn't mean great wealth. That means the ability to survive, to go forward in a lot of the different things that he introduced at that time.
Speaker 1:
Okay, great. And how about you Kiper points on Smith?
Speaker 5:
Similar to what they have said, I feel that Smith was very aware of people's personalities in general and how they were and how they acted and their motives behind what they did. Alright. And
Speaker 6:
Luke, I would just agree with the descriptive comment. I think it's interesting that you see him very much involved in the practical. You don't see, I don't know, a con or somebody talking about needles and pins and
Speaker 1:
More pins,
Speaker 6:
How to make a pin the best way. That's not something that most other philosophers talk about.
Speaker 1:
I was joking with Dr. Richie before the taping started of this class period and said, boy, he just keeps talking about pins and pins and pins and I think we're going to skip past a little bit of that and pull up our first graphic. And in the first graphic he's going to be talking about division of labor, so we can't get away from it. And it's certainly the analogy that he wants to use as far as labor, but we won't spend too much time as your reading does on that. And Kiper, would you read this first reading for this first quote?
Speaker 5:
Yes. The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labor and the greatest part of the skill, dexterity and judgment with which it is anywhere directed or applied seem to have been the effects of the division of labor.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so he is making this statement the importance of the division of labor. And let's go ahead and read the next quote where he's going to back up his argument on the importance of the division of labor. And John, would you read this for us please?
Speaker 3:
Yes. Why Division of Labor increases the quantity of work first to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman, secondly to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another. And lastly to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labor and enable one man to do the work of many.
Speaker 1:
Okay, and this is generally a test question because these are three of the major points that he makes. Anyone want to tell me why these are so important before we ask Dr. Richie about it a little bit?
Speaker 6:
I would.
Speaker 1:
Okay. Luke,
Speaker 6:
I just think you could ask my wife why they're so important because I'm so bad at them. For those of us who are a little disorganized and like to start over here and work on this, you know that you're not effective and it definitely is much more efficient. It's logical and it works. And some reason I'm just really bad at it
Speaker 1:
And I've never seen anyone more organized than Amanda does. That's right. So we have some good sides to it and some downsides on this. Kiper, any comments on
Speaker 5:
That? These three things I think definitely do increase the quantity of work produced by using them.
Speaker 1:
Alright, and any other thoughts? How about at Bonner? Why are these three points his starting out? He's going to kind of make this a thesis.
Speaker 2:
We need to put this in a little more perspective. I think. Thank you. Lemme go back to John's point, he said that, and Adam Smith, as Luke mentioned, is often referred to as the practical philosopher, one of the first really practical philosophers. And he was absolutely pivotal in the industrial revolution. He both observed the beginning of it and justified provided a moral justification for the
extension of it. He was right in the beginning of the industrial revolution. And what we saw was the beginning of the factory movement, the beginning of machines that we'd never heard of before. And we were moving from a world of artisan and craft, which was a cottage world, the cobbler, the Miller words, we don't even use much anymore. We don't even have a concept for the people who did those things. Now we have a huge factory that does all those things. And Adam Smith was the one that captured the moral and the practical aspect of moving from an artisan world, a crafts world to a mass production world.
And I think that's a critical thing to realize that without division of labor, as he said, one person would make one pin a day instead of 40 pins a day and the whole world benefited dramatically. The whole world suffered a lot and we need to get into that later on. But it benefited dramatically from this emphasis on efficiency, on structuring the production process on a division of labor where one person would do one thing and do it really well. It was alienating but it was efficient. And I think that he observed and gave a moral rationale or justification for that, that really sent the industrial revolution on its
Speaker 1:
Way. Oh, thank you. You paint such a beautiful picture of the condition of the time that you might have one person who's making shoes, one person who's making fabric, one person who's a weaver, and then a person who's a tailor. And he's saying there are ways that we can be much more efficient with this and we don't need to regulate and say, well I think we only need three tailors in this town. He's going to say, let's see what happens if we start looking at division of labor. So let's go ahead and pull up what he's going to say are some skills that are important. Rhonda, could you read this for us please?
Speaker 4:
The first greatest skill, greater skill increases the quantity of work. A smith who has been accustomed to make nails but whose sole or principal business has not been that of a nailer can seldom with his utmost diligence make more than 800 or a thousand nails in a day. I have seen several boys less than 20 years of age who had never exercised any other trade, but that of making nails and who, when they exerted themselves, could make each of them upward of 2,300 nails in a day.
Speaker 1:
What do you think about that, do you think? So you've got a smith and usually this is somebody who might be pounding out horseshoes and other things and Adam Smith says, why have we got him making nails when we could have these boys making a lot more
Speaker 4:
And not only the nails that they're making, they're probably not the same width, they're the same length, they might be slightly bent and mass production is generally going to pull that out.
Speaker 1:
Alright, and I can see John's jaw's a little clenched here. What's going on here, John?
Speaker 3:
Well, I mean he's right. The efficiency increased exponentially when something like this happens, one person is making double the amount of nails, but I mean at what point are we going to say that's all he's doing? It's almost like his work is reduced just doing that. And I mean at what point are we going to point that out and talk about the negative consequences of that, I guess would be why my jaws clenched and what I think about
Speaker 1:
It. We're not going to get around to it. No dream on kisser,
Speaker 5:
At least not in today's reading, not today's reading. By simplifying the work he is increasing the quantity and the amount that they're making. But I quite agree with John in that it kind of is degrading in a way in that it's no longer a skill. I mean it is a skill, but it's no longer a range of skills. It's just I can only do this and that's what I do. So
Speaker 1:
Have we created a problem here or do we have these young boys able to make a good wage, they can support themselves, help support their families? What have we got going here, Dr. Richie?
Speaker 2:
Both. We've created an efficiency system that is dehumanizing
And we have to be honest about that. There is an incredible benefit to efficiency. We would never have the automobiles and the refrigerators and the television sets and the computers in the world of craft Kiss Me talks about the transition. It was a craft world that we had. And then now we go to a reductionist skill world and as you lose the craft, you lose the pride and the identity that goes with work and the guilds with their incredible prestige for those who could make really exquisite woodwork or artistry of some sort, no longer. Now it's just one nail's as good as another, one dress is as good as another. And when you lose the craft, you lose the dignity of the individual. And to a degree, not totally. We do pay them well and we don't really pay them more, but they
Speaker 1:
Have work,
Speaker 2:
We pay them. So the reading anyway, there's not an equitable distribution in Adam Smith's world, there would be a much better distribution if we had good information, if we had perfect information, if we had access and choice and could be mobile, could travel and all those things. But we lived in a world where that wasn't feasible and so people were victimized by that. But people benefited. And that's the dilemma. All of life is a dilemma. This is another one of those great dilemmas that we have to live with.
Speaker 1:
We were making big changes at this time and some people ended up being those from whom we learned the lessons of these changes. Other people still work in these same types of situations and they'll have other hobbies or activities outside of work. Work is there and they can have benefits and bring home dinner to the family. And quality of life is outside of work. So we're really seeing these changes then these big lifestyle changes. And maybe some people feel like that they have more access now to money, that they're being allowed instead of being seen as a craftsperson of the greatest quality and they never could attain it, that at least they're part of this process.
Speaker 7:
That's right.
Speaker 1:
Well let's pull up the next graphic and Luke, would you read this one for us please?
Speaker 6:
Time is saved when the worker isn't traveling between two jobs. A country weaver who cultivates a small farm must lose a good deal of time in passing from his loom to the field and from the field to his loom when the two trades can be carried on in the same workhouse. The loss of time is no doubt, much less it is even in this case. However, very considerable.
Speaker 1:
Thank you. And I start thinking about this time saved quote that we have from Adam Smith and someone may be telling me a crafts person telling me I not only did the weaving for this piece and put it together and sewed it, but I also grew, I grew what was needed to make it and I might be willing to pay extra for that, but a lot of people aren't. What do you think about this notion here where he's saying a country weaver doesn't need to be a country farmer too, so to speak?
Speaker 6:
Luke, I lived in Italy for a couple of years and it was interesting to see that there are a lot more craftsmen still there. And I ran into a man who made shoes and he made every part of the shoe and he would even paint sort of the design on them and they were incredible and they were also incredibly expensive, but the quality of it was far beyond anything I'd ever seen. It was that way with all kinds of things. And so having that pride in what you're producing, it definitely increases the quality of it. But the time he told me it would take over 20 days for him to make a pair of shoes for somebody and that's considerable and it wouldn't cut it in America.
Speaker 1:
And why was it not cutting it at the time and certainly isn't going to cut it today. Dr. rci to
Speaker 2:
Economics is a weird phenomenon. People need to eat and we had malice and Ricardo and all these people talking about the disaster of too many people and not enough food, too many mouths to feed and not enough bread to go in them. And so we had to get efficient and by far the biggest revolution at this time was not the machine shop, it was the farm, it was agricultural. It was the fact
that we had to learn to produce more with less. We had to make our fields more productive. And Adam Smith doesn't talk a lot about that, but that was the backdrop where he was describing that we couldn't survive unless we became more efficient. You couldn't survive with the miller and the cobbler and this craft world. There were too many people. England was overcrowded and we've got to become efficient for survival. So it wasn't just the ideal of the crafts person having the pride in their craft, it was eating, it was survival. And in order to have fun and to have pride, we had to either reduce the population or increase the resource or something. It was hard to manipulate all the variables.
Speaker 1:
Something had to give.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And another reason why Adam Smith is credited as the father of economics but hadn't really intended it, as we mentioned before, he was a philosophy professor at Glasgow, so hadn't intended to be an economist but did end up making important contributions there. And let's read the next graphic, which tells us a little bit more about the dreaded machines. So Rhonda, would you read this for us?
Speaker 4:
Alright. This is the third greatest skill, which is machines. Machines were invented by workers wanting to ease their own labor. In the first fire engines, a boy was constantly employed to open and shut. Alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according as the piston either ascended or descended, one of those boys who loved to play with his companions observed that by tying a string from the handle of the valve, which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without his assistance and leave him at liberty to divert himself with his play fellows.
Speaker 1:
So John, we've got a pretty nifty machine going here. We absolutely, he's getting paid for his work and he is got a machine. What's the play too? And he can play. I think we still have plenty of that going on, but so we have an upside. He's telling us a fun thing about machines.
Speaker 3:
Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
What are the good things about machines?
Speaker 3:
Well machines reduce the amount of really hard and degrading labor that we have to do. So I mean, in another way, he's also describing something that is helping us in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so Bonner, can you tell us a little bit more about machines and this crafty little boy who could figure out how to spend more time playing?
Speaker 2:
The observation of the little boy and the boiler and the cylinders kind of typical of Adam Smith moving away from the exotic, from the esoteric down to the really mundane, the really kind of silly little detail. He wasn't talking about the creation of the cotton gin or the steam engine or the machines that became so important to people like Watt and Whitney and he was talking about little boy in a cylinder. But anyway, the critical notion of machines, we hadn't even heard much. We had the movable type, which was a critical step in a process that wasn't a machine, but it was a step in structuring work, in communicating. And so we had the beginning point and now we just had an explosion in the mid 17 hundreds of every conceivable type of machine to do every conceivable type of thing. And it was an exciting time and a lot of it was done frankly by a serendipitous process of a uninformed non-scientist making this huge contribution.
Speaker 1:
So Bonner, do we have the industrial revolution going on now and do we have Adam Smith as a vital part of it?
Speaker 2:
Well sure. We've had in economic theory, in economic history, we talk about various industrial revolutions. This was the first one. And even that could be debated, you could push that back. But we usually talk about the mid 17 hundreds as the beginning, the first industrial revolution. Then we talk about the second and the third and what have we got now with information technology? What has Bill Gates done? What has Michael Dell done? We've got this incredible revolution and the accessibility of information, the overload of information, the burden of information, the same thing, then the benefits and the cost. But machines were critical to the world. We have lights and whoever heard of electricity at this time, steam powered everything. Critical step,
Speaker 1:
Critical step, exciting. The little boy may have lost his job, but it was a critical step. We found out we really didn't need him there. But he can go work somewhere else. We'll find something else for him to do that probably makes better use of his talents anyway, if he's so clever. And I love how you say these mundane examples of Smith because that's how we remember them. They have become classic examples and we'll have a few more as we continue on in this class period. So let's go ahead and pull up the next graphic. And John, would you read this one for us please?
Speaker 3:
Yes. Excess of goods, this increase in productivity leads to an excess of goods. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasioned for and every
other workman being exactly in the same situation. He's enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity or what comes to the same thing for the price of a great quantity of theirs.
Speaker 1:
Thank you. We're moving into a very important point of his then about bartering and he's going to talk about truck bartering and exchanging and he's going to say, this is really old. I mean we've all had goods and we've had excess goods, so we'll trade them for someone else. We'll trade them with someone else for something that we desire. He says, this is really fundamental. This is a place where you've really got to focus because people are going to do this but they're not going to do it. They're good people. They're going to do it because they want your goods and they want to trade. So let's refine this point a little bit by reading the next graphic and then we'll have Dr. Richie help us with both of 'em and kisser. Could you read the next one for us please? They're actually two that I'll have you read.
Speaker 5:
Humans have a natural propensity to truck barter and exchange. This division of labor from which so many advantages are derived is not originally the fact of any human wisdom which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature, which has iue, no such extensive utility, the propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another.
Speaker 1:
Alright, thank you. And so it's a human propensity. Then Vonner, we like to trade with each other
Speaker 2:
And we also like to have variety of things. If I make all my own clothes, it's a pretty limited variety.
Speaker 7:
If
Speaker 2:
Somebody else is good at making shirts, I can have more variety. I can have color and design and that's exciting. We like variety, we variety of foods. My single kind of bread is kind of limiting. I like the idea that somebody else can make rye and somebody else can make whole wheat. That's kind of nice and I can't do all those things. So yeah, I want to find somebody who does something that I need, that I want. And that's not evil, self-interest, that's positive. It can turn evil, but it's not evil at its root.
Speaker 1:
I think he's giving some good permission here too. He says, Hey, this is a great thing to do. This is a great way of spreading around the economy of people finding value in the thing that you do. They're going to like your bread, they're going to like your shirts, they're going to like your shoes, whatever it might be. And so he says, get out there and do what he's going to call truck barter and exchange. But
he wants you to remember that there is a very necessary point behind this as well. And let's go ahead and read this next graphic. And Luke, could you read this for us?
Speaker 6:
In almost every other race of animals, each individual when it is grown up to maturity is entirely independent and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature, but man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
Speaker 1:
Luke, explain that to us. Why is that such a fundamental point of Smith's?
Speaker 6:
I think it's something that's so much a part of our everyday life. It almost is intuitive for us. But you go into a restaurant and you can order any number of things off of a menu and it's not because a bunch of people showed up and delivered fish and meat or whatever because they wanted to be charitable. It's because they could sell it to the owner of the restaurant and make a profit off of it. The owner prepares it because you're going to buy it. Everything functions not because people want to give these things to each other or because the government tells them to, but because it's in their own best interest.
Speaker 1:
Okay, thank you. So he's going to say, if I want variety, I can go to this restaurant. Someone's already worked with the restaurant person and we all depend on each other. And that restaurant owner is going to depend on all his suppliers so that we can have a variety to choose from when we do go to that restaurant. So he's going to say, we depend on each other, but don't expect that this is benevolence only. Tell us a little bit more about why this is so important. Bonner.
Speaker 2:
It's a funny thing, but in order to have a system work, you have to have a different calculus of values. I have to value the food more than the restaurant or the store. And they have to value the money more than the food. If they value the food more, they wouldn't sell it to me. They need the money and I need the food. And so I have to value the money less and they have to value it more. It's not an objective calculus here, it's a differential. And we all have to have a different value system in order for the system to work. And let's be honest about it and realize what our value system was. How much do you value leisure? How much do you value variety in clothes and vacation in cars, in whatever you do. And if you don't value it differently than somebody else, there's no deal. And that's a very critical part of economic theory and of life.
Speaker 1:
And so even though maybe he's using terminology from 1776 from old where we're talking the brewer and the butcher and the baker, it still transcends and moves right on into these notions that you're talking about.
Speaker 3:
Yep.
Speaker 1:
Very good. Well let's move on to the next quote. And Rhonda, would you read this for us please?
Speaker 4:
Nobody. But a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens. Even a beggar does not depend on it entirely. The charity of well disposed people indeed supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people by treaty, by barter and by purchase with the money which one man gives him. He purchases food, the old clothes, which another bestows upon him. He exchanges for other old clothes which suit him better or for lodging or for food or for money with which he can buy either food, clothes or lodging as he has occasion.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so the system then Rhonda will take care of the beggar and tell me why also Smith needs to bring this out.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, I don't know how to put this in words, so I'm going to throw that back to you.
Speaker 1:
That's that's just fine because as we're talking about, we have people who have a profession such as the butcher, the brewer, the baker, and they also might see a beggar who is in need of goods and services. They might have extra, they might have old things, they might just feel guilty. Smith's a good philosopher. And he's going to say, sometimes we do things that we ought to be doing. And so you'll share some of the things that you have. Maybe you have extra food from your restaurant of that day. Maybe you have old clothes that you can pass on. Maybe you just have some cash and he's going to say it's okay because even the beggar is going to use the barter system. He may take the clothes you give him, trade 'em with Bonner, no, not really. Trade them with someone else. And then he is got a different outfit, he might have too much bread. He trades that with someone else who has some cheese and he, he's got a better meal. So he is going to say, even beggars use the bartering system. Okay,
Speaker 2:
Lemme push this point a little further. Elaine, I don't know if everyone's aware, but at the end of Adam Smith's life, he did want a lot of his stuff burned and destroyed because it wasn't quite polished. One of the things he wanted destroyed was the incredible volume of charity that he engaged in. He gave an enormous amount of money to charitable causes and he didn't want it known. And I think this is really interesting. Now, he knew that charity should not be the purpose of the organization, but he also said it ought to be the result of those who accumulate wealth. It ought to be a motive of, for the organization can't be charitable as a premise, but as a result, when you are
lucky and when they exchange results in you having excess resources, you ought to give them away. And let me make one more point here.
Speaker 1:
Oh, please do. The Adam Smith Society really does like to focus on that too.
Speaker 2:
This
Speaker 1:
Was one he did care about that
Speaker 2:
One of Adamson's primary purposes was to do away with mercantilism, which was the process by which a nation set itself up primarily England, great Britain in this instance. And he hated Great Britain, by the way. He was a Scott. He was not a Bri British and that's a very clear issue.
Speaker 7:
But
Speaker 2:
Anyway, he disliked Great Britain because of their mercantil policy where they accumulated surplus in order to put other nations, primarily France, maybe Germany and Italy, but primarily France at a disadvantage. And so they accumulated resources, they had incredible tariffs, they did all these things to put everybody else at a disadvantage. He said that was all wrong. You ought to have free trade. You ought to not have tariffs, you ought not have mechanisms that limit the choices of people and the allocation of resources. And you shouldn't accumulate a surplus as somebody else's disadvantage. If you do have a surplus, you ought to help other people. That's a key point for Adam Smith.
Speaker 4:
It is. So rather than being the owner of something, you become a benefactor steward. Steward of it.
Speaker 1:
A steward,
Speaker 4:
Exactly.
Speaker 1:
And a benefactor to others. It's an outstanding point. And I think that the Smith Society, the Adam Smith society, often makes reference to this very important point dog charity. Let's read what he says about the next one and how societies do benefit from these variety of activities. I'm glad you
brought up mercantilism by the way. That was important. And John, could you read this for us please?
Speaker 3:
Prospect of exchange encourages work and thus the certainty of being able to exchange all the surplus part of the produce of his own labor, which is over and above his own consumption, encourages every man to apply himself to a particular occupation and to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent or genius he may possess for that particular species of business.
Speaker 1:
Thanks. So Rhonda, you have this prospect of exchange. How can that be motivating?
Speaker 4:
Well, there's so much motivation in being able to produce what it is that you want. It talks about your genius or your talent being able to, I can't think straight.
Speaker 1:
That's all right. You're doing great because here we're talking about you can take a lot of pride in what it is you're doing. Luke likes it and you've got something going here. And it also increases our supply and demand. Yes.
Speaker 5:
So is he saying that it's not degrading to bring down these tasks to not levels, not at
Speaker 4:
All, not degrading.
Speaker 5:
That's what I'm saying is so that it'll cultivate and bring perfection to those talents that they have.
Speaker 1:
Very good meant by that is that we will have a lot of pride in someone say, I like your stuff. I like the butter that you make and the demand for your butter might grow Luke. Whereas the butter that John over here is making isn't quite as good and the demand might not grow. And so we'll see Luke doing a better job than John. You still might be able to talk people into it
Speaker 4:
Or as I see also that whatever valid occupation that you're using in order to create an exchange is valuable. It is whatever it is,
Speaker 2:
It's only degrading if you don't want to do it. And if it subtracts from who you are, if it's something you want to do, then it's a very efficient system. If you're forced to do it. If you can't do anything else, then it's degrading.
Speaker 1:
Thank you. Thank you. And Luke, would you read the last quote for us? And then Bonner will have you tell us a little bit about it.
Speaker 6:
Increasing one's own revenue increases society's revenue as every individual, therefore endeavors as much as he can, both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry. And so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value. Every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally indeed neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he's promoting it.
Speaker 1:
Okay, so in this particular reading, we don't have the notion of the invisible hand, but where does he seem to be moving into this in regards to the invisible hand Bonner.
Speaker 2:
And of course that's the phrase that's probably identified with Adam Smith more than any other.
And that's what he's saying here is that as I pursue my own interest, as I do what I'm capable of doing, where I can make a better trade, where I can do something that you want and then you give me money, then I can buy the car I want that we're all better off and that we don't do it with the idea of social good or a social utilitarianism. We do it the idea of my own personal benefit of how I can benefit. I want that car, I want that benefit for myself. But in the process, the whole society benefits and that's the invisible hand. The notion that we all go to where we can be, we can be better off. And that makes society better off in the final analysis. And that's the invisible hand. It only works though when you have good information, fair trade, a government that protects contracts, that engages in all the behaviors that they're supposed to engage in. And a government by the way, that builds roads so you can move your goods. He knows Adam Smith knows that individual incentive is not going to lead to construction of bridges and roads. So the government's got to do it. So it is not that he doesn't want the government to do anything he to do everything that needs to be done to make the individual free to engage in optimal exchange.
Speaker 1:
Optimal exchange, which is so important because it's not like we need me as a grand POAH to say, alright, let's see how this is going. If you exchange this, then you'll be happy and then you exchange this and we don't need that. He says, this invisible hand is going to take care of it. And that basically it gets all messed up. Even if you have someone from the government come in and try to regulate and say, well, I think that maybe we've got too many people making butter, so we're going to restrict this to just six of you now. He's saying, no, no, no. The invisible hand will take care of everything. I've
even heard somebody, some people say that that might be the invisible hand of God, but my friend Pat Wareh says, no, it's not. But
Speaker 2:
Adam Smith would not have said that
He was not a religious person. But an example of that, the logic of the Pul Up Bureau deciding what everybody needs is kind of an interesting concept. The problem is the first thing that went to a market economy in this old Soviet Union was the ready to wear industry clothes where people had enough resources. They were no longer going to allow the central system to decide what shoes and pants and shirts and uniforms people were going to wear and dresses. They were going to decide for themselves. And the first thing to go underground in the Soviet Union were Levi's that people would bring in informally, illegally, and sell on the local economy when people had the resource they wanted to do what they wanted to do, rather than having Moscow tell 'em. And that's validating Adam Smith.
Speaker 4:
I love that example. How I see this is if capitalism as this has been explained as an absolute freeing, rather than buckling down people or telling people what to do, there's a freedom in this.
Speaker 1:
And he doesn't want there to also be anything seen as vile. You're free. This is up to you, and you can do these exchanges. Now we can see how there have been abuses in the system and how things have gotten much more complicated. And when I teach ethics, and particularly business ethics Bonner, I like to bring in cases. I think that so often we learn from cases. How are you with the case method?
Speaker 2:
I agree. Yeah. I tell stories all the time.
Speaker 1:
You do. And yours are incredible experiences that you've had. And I've got a case that we'll pull up and watch as a class and then we'll go ahead and discuss it and see what points Adam Smith might have learned from this or how he might've been able to teach those who are part of this case. So can you go ahead and roll that for me, please?
Speaker 8:
You got a Yeah, we had a good in college. No work, no bills, no worries. Oh, I recognize that face. What's the problem, Jim? It's nothing. Well, just that you know I'm up for promotion,
Speaker 9:
I'm well earned. Your analysis of the midyear forecast is right on the button. You deserve everything you get. Sure.
Speaker 8:
Let me explain The analysis I did for our division head. He had me looking at sales and marketing projections and relating them to manufacturing costs. Now what I came up with was that if we could substantially increase our production rate, obviously the price per unit would fall. And based on our sales projections, this increased volume would match a projected demand. So they added a third shift to
Speaker 9:
Gear up at the outboard. Exactly. And if sales meet expectations while there are plans to expand the plant, so what's the problem? Being responsible for those kinds of changes is something to be proud of. Look, Pete, we've been
Speaker 8:
Friends for a long time, you even helped me get this job. I can trust you. Sure. The recommendation I made, there was a serious flaw in my forecast. No matter how many times you run it, I understated the cost. How much enough to be concerned about why hasn't anyone else noticed? I mean, we don't operate in a vacuum. I know for whatever reason sales are running higher than our projections anticipated. We're making more money, selling more product, but we're not making the kind of money we should because the cost per unit is higher than I had predicted. And also I'm sure no one else noticed because we're only talking about one product line here.
Speaker 9:
What are you going to do?
Speaker 8:
I could tell the truth or I could come up with some other reason to explain the deviation from my forecast. That's a toughie. If I do tell the truth, it could really screw up my promotion.
Speaker 9:
Well, as I see it, you have one other choice. You could cut your losses and tell the truth. You can make something up to cover your mistake or you could keep quiet and
Speaker 8:
Wait and see what happens. When I think of them adding another shift, there's no way they can keep those workers. If sales fall off,
Speaker 9:
I may have something for you. What's that? Well, this afternoon I got the latest sales projections on my desk. Now I just glanced at it and I didn't have a chance to go over it real well. But from what I saw, sales are running better, even better than had been forecast for the outboard division. Now if that continues, that'll cover your mistake.
Speaker 8:
Not really. Even if we make, what? 250,000? If I hadn't screwed things up, we would've cleared
Speaker 9:
300,000. But nobody knows that. I mean, the increase in sales will cover any downturn. Your mistake may have caused, at least for the short term,
Speaker 7:
Right?
Speaker 9:
And by then you can pull something together to show why we shouldn't proceed with the expansion. You'll be able to ride out the storm and everything will work out. But what about those workers? They could get laid off true. But telling management isn't going to prevent that. It may even hasten it. Look buddy, this is a mistake you're going to have to live with. Whether or not you tell isn't going to change anything but how it affects you. I
Speaker 8:
Know it's not the best, but you've made me more comfortable thinking that sales are going to cover my error. But what if they don't?
Speaker 1:
Case comes to us from Arthur Anderson who put together several very strong business cases and they allow us to use it as long as we give them credit for it. Too bad that tough things happen with the Arthur Anderson accounting firm, but it's very generous that they will allow us to have these kind of cases that we look at. When I do ethical analysis, Dr. Ritchie, sometimes what I'll ask my students to do is what are the ethical issues I'd like them to look at what are the ethical issues? I'd like them to look at the individuals who are involved. And to even go more specific than that, who are the stakeholders here? Who are all the stakeholders and who's being harmed? And from that a solution as to what should be done. What are some ways that you have your students look at cases and how would you instruct them as they start looking at this case?
Speaker 2:
Well, as a premise, Adam Smith would be very troubled with this, because we don't have valid information, we don't have truth, we have concocted information. And that flies in the face of everything you talked about in terms of free enterprise, in terms of rational decision making and allocation of resources. It depends on accurate data. And this person is fudging the data for his own benefit. Some people would see that as the money grubbing sort of justification of Adam Smith. I see it as an absolute violation of Adam Smith. It's manipulating and it's putting at a disadvantage because they don't have information, those who don't know the facts. And so you've got to look, is honesty worthwhile? Is honesty a valid sort of principle here? And this individual's wrestling with that notion and Adam Smith wouldn't wrestle with it at all?
Speaker 1:
Of course. That's the straight a answer. And that starts out with what are the ethical concerns and giving Adam Smith then the credit, first of all, saying he would not agree with this at all. We we're moving towards fraud. A fellow knows he's given bad information and if he doesn't correct it now, a lot of people can be hurt then.
Speaker 7:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Okay. What might be some other reasons that Adam Smith wouldn't like this? John, what do you think about a whole new shift coming on? Because someone might not want to take responsibility for a mistake he's made in forecasting.
Speaker 3:
Well, these workers are, they'd be taking the job on a false premise without accurate information. They don't, or at least the case implies that they wouldn't know that they were coming in for a temporary position or something like that. And I don't think right now, I'm thinking that Adam Smith wouldn't be too keen on the idea.
Speaker 1:
Oh, absolutely. It's going to be very harmful to the company that brings in this next shift where the shift isn't needed and very harmful to all those people who think that they now have the ability to truck barter and exchange. Any thoughts on this Bonner?
Speaker 2:
One of the dilemmas is that we assume this absolute financial incentive. It's interesting that 50 years ago there was virtually a perfect correlation between earnings profits and stock price. People saw a company doing well, they bought the stock and the stock went up. And so there's a perfect correlation. Now it's a 0.5 correlation and the difference between the 0.95 and the 0.5 is that people now care a lot more about ethics, a lot more about values, a lot more about leadership, a lot more about social responsibility than we used to. So we've seen this dramatic change in the last 50 years in economics where the long-term ethical behavior of an organization witness Enron, Arthur Anderson, Tyco, the long-term ethical behavior is the most important thing, or at least half of the important thing in driving people's confidence and purchase of the stock. People do care about ethics and values and honesty,
Speaker 1:
And Adam Smith felt it was fundamental. So for him, this was what he first wrote was Theory of Moral Sentiments, that there would always be the moral grounding as you mentioned, and that came well before the making of profits. Anything that you'd like to add to the analysis of this case, Luke or Kiper?
Speaker 6:
I think it's interesting that we have a very clear situation where he has an option where he can kind of gamble like his friend suggests that maybe the fact that the company's doing well and this other area will compensate for his fudging the numbers. And obviously that would be wrong, but lots of times the numbers are not perfect and there is a certain amount of gambling in the free market, even when you were pretty sure that you've got things figured out, things can change, variables can change, and people lose their jobs all the same. So there's always a little bit of gamble in the free market.
Speaker 1:
Okay. And Kiper, how about you?
Speaker 5:
I think we've covered it.
Speaker 1:
Alright, anything you'd like to add to that?
Speaker 5:
No.
Speaker 1:
I have really loved this class period with you, Bonner. It's been so fun to have you come in and share your knowledge and let us pick your brain.
Speaker 7:
Thank
Speaker 1:
You. And any concluding remark on Adam Smith? We just have about 30 seconds.
Speaker 2:
I guess I would suggest that all of us need to do more thinking and more reading and more studying, and not take superficial explanations of what somebody believed or said or thought or what their theory was. We need to dig deeper. We do a great disservice to philosophers, to business leaders, to politicians, everybody by not studying more carefully. This has been a good introduction, I think, to digging more deeply into Adam Smith.
Speaker 1:
Thank you and see you next time with Carl Marx. Bye-Bye. And we'll.

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2 Interviewee: Bonner Ritchie Interviewer: Kathryn French Date: June 6, 2007 Subject: Utah Peace Activists Place: Orem, Utah KF: This is Kathy French interviewing Bonner Ritchie in my office, June 6, 2007. Describe yourself. BR: Oh, dear. I’m a person who loves to get involved in controversial issues. I always have been. I’m not a goal-oriented person; I’m a process-oriented person. I go with what’s fun, exciting, stimulating, at the moment, and don’t work it into a long term goal or a long term objective of some sort. My education has been the same way. I never decided to get a Ph.D. I just loved to study and loved school and finally ended up with one. Being process-oriented when there is something that violates a process like injustice or discrimination or exploitation or violence or manipulation or abuse, of some sort, that’s a process variable that’s interfering with a human dignity of someone. Then I get incensed and I want to take action. I define myself, in professional terms, as an organizational philosopher. I try and understand the forces that operate an organization, the way organizations evolve, the way they change, the way they fail, the way they manipulate or defend or abuse, and therefore, try to work the other side to make them more humane, more supportive, more helpful, more respectful of people rather than to abuse and use people. Early on in my career as a professor of organizational behavior I think my goal was helping people protect themselves against organizational abuse that comes from any source, a government, a supervisor, a teacher, a parent, whatever, to help people protect themselves from any abuse that comes through the use and abuse of power. So that’s kind of my framework. My background is sort of curious. I grew up on a farm in Heber City, Utah, and when I was twelve years old my father came home one day and said, “We’re moving to San Francisco.” My mother said, “What? What are we going to do?” He said, “I don’t know but we’re moving.” He was tired of rural Utah, and tired of farming, and tired of sort of a parochial world, I think. He never said that but I know he was tired of the farm work and those things. So we moved to San Francisco when I was twelve years old, and San Francisco is different than Heber City. It’s a big city. It’s diverse, it’s multicultural, and a vibrant place, and I loved it. Of course I went to school with all these kids who were very different than I was, and I decided at that time that I had been very biased, very racist, very bigoted, in my limited orientation. I didn’t have much opportunity to demonstrate that with respect to a minority person because there were none in my sphere of activity, but there were in San Francisco. So I started to learn about people. This was the end of WWII and I became concerned about a group that I barely knew about, that was getting some press, and that was the Japanese-Americans who had been put up and put in camps during WWII. A lot of them came from San Francisco. A fair number of Japanese and Chinese were from the city and people were talking about it, and I decided this was 3 troublesome. As a boy I would look out and see the Golden Gate Bridge, and I decided I wanted to build a bridge someday like that, a bridge to Tokyo so we wouldn’t have another war. That was my vision of what I wanted to do. So I became a civil engineer. I went to school to build bridges. Then I found myself in Germany commanding a nuclear weapons unit, in between 1959 and 1963, when the Berlin Wall got built. At that point, when we armed our nuclear weapons to blow up the Soviet Union, I decided there had to be a better way. That was not a good way to solve problems. If you read the accounts of the Soviet generals, they came very close to war as did the US. I think it’s a miracle that we didn’t have an all-out war. This was the height of the Cold War. I decided I needed to do something different, so I went back to school to try and understand behavior and conflict and power. I couldn’t find a place to do it. I tried psychology and sociology and political science and all those things, and I finally ended up with a degree in economics, a Ph.D. in economics, with an emphasis in labor issues on conflict negotiation and bargaining theory. And then I went to Michigan to teach and was fortunate enough to be part of the beginning of the field of organizational behavior, the applied social science. Again my focus became helping people protect themselves against abuse and make the world a more humane place. Then I came out to BYU in 1973 and retired in 2000. In the meantime I had visiting appointments all over, Stanford and other universities in the U.S., and several times in the Middle East, at the University of Jordan, and other places. KF: How did you first get started in the Middle East? BR: That’s a fun story. I was walking down the hall one day of the administration building at BYU and Bill Evenson was the Associate Academic Vice President who was responsible for the BYU Jerusalem Center that had just been finished in 1989. Bill said, “How would you like to go to Jerusalem?” I said, “Oh, sometime that would be fun,” not thinking too much about it but I said, “That would be fun sometime.” A few weeks later I got a fax from the director saying, “We’re delighted to learn that you and your family will be moving to Jerusalem this year.” This was in about April of 1989. I went back to Bill and said, “You were serious.” He said, “Weren’t you?” I said “Yeah, but not now. It’s not a good time.” He said, “Well, think about it some more. Let’s talk some more.” So we talked and, actually, we had a meeting in Salt Lake with some of the members of the Board of Trustees who said, “We need you to go to Jerusalem to build bridges to the Palestinians.” So that was it. In the fall of 1989 my family moved to Jerusalem for a year, and I started working with Palestinian groups. I did training programs and various things but I got acquainted with a lot of people, including Yasser Arafat, and most of the PLO leaders, and the Israeli leaders, Sharon Peres and Ehud Barak and others were very involved. I really worked hard to try and facilitate the process. I worked with the PLO in preparation for the Oslo peace negotiations in Tunis. A lot of things worked reasonably well but then as time goes on one thing breaks and then another. It is very disappointing and very frustrating to see all your work sort of be—It’s not for naught, but you just don’t accomplish all the things. But that’s how I got started in 1989. Then as a result of the contacts and involvement there I’ve spent about six full years since 1989 living in 4 Jordan or Jerusalem or working in Lebanon or Egypt, and all around the Gulf: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait. KF: When you say there were some disappointments, what difference did your work make? BR: One thing that was kind of fun is on the Christmas following the negotiations that were in 1994, I guess, I got a Christmas card from the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. He sent me a card. He’s not a Christian, he’s Muslim, but he sent me a card. It’s a picture of Bethlehem on the cover, of Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity where Christ was born. He sent me a picture of that and put a little note in it that said, “Thanks for all your help. We couldn’t have done it without you.” The reference was I helped them change their paradigm, their framework of thinking. This came to me in kind of a funny way. I had been working with some Palestinian groups and some Israeli groups and realized that for fifty years, since the creation of the state of Israel in 1947-1948, at that point the Jews accepted the state of Israel and the Arabs all rejected it. For the Arabs it was all or nothing. “It’s all our land.” For the Palestinians, “It’s all ours. The Jews are welcome to live here but we will not accept the Jewish state, the state of Israel.” I said, “It’s interesting you had an all or nothing strategy and the Jews had an incremental strategy. They’d take whatever they could get and see what would happen later.” I said, “So their strategy is incremental, yours is all or nothing. It’s fifty years later, they have all, you have nothing. Maybe you need a new paradigm, and maybe you need an incremental paradigm rather than an all or nothing. There’s nothing to negotiate if there’s nothing to talk about. You’re doomed.” I said, “You have to compromise. You don’t like that but that’s what you have to do.” I think that was the turning point, in terms of the way they thought about it, and ever since it has been a negotiation strategy, especially for the Palestinian Authority, Arafat’s group. Hamas, right now, isn’t much in the negotiating mood and they’re in control of the parliament in Palestine. But even they will come. They will negotiate. They will come because people have to live and they have to eat and they have to go to school and they have to have medical care. There is a point at which the violence and the disruption just becomes too much. But that’s what happened, and really it was changing paradigm. Many of my former students are now in important positions in the Palestinian Authority and the government of Jordon and other places, they were all very grateful for helping me change the paradigm, the way we thought about the world and the all or nothing strategy gives way to a reasonable negotiation and compromise. KF: So you met a lot of them while you were teaching at a University? BR: Yes. Birzeit University, in Palestine, is the best of the Palestinian schools, and is generally regarded as kind of the training ground for Palestinian leaders. And then in Jordon, at the University of Jordon, I taught at the Jordon Institute of Diplomacy, which prepares Jordanian and other Arab diplomats for diplomatic purposes. I taught conflict resolution negotiation skills, and many of those people are now in important positions, chief of staff in Jordan, chief economist, various groups there, various individuals. It’s really fun 5 to see what they’re doing and how they’re gradually changing the overall mind set in the Arab world. At the same time, the sad part and the disappointing part, is that there is a small number of violent and vicious people on the other extreme who don’t want to negotiate, who don’t want peace. It’s a small group but they’re very noticeable and very powerful. So that’s sad part. And they came about because reasonable people didn’t do reasonable things when they could and should have, which would have prevented the violence and the terrorism and the in-fighting. So we missed the opportunity. We were so late in doing the things that should be done we let it go for fifty years and the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza were reflecting a foreign policy that was a disaster. This carried over to Iraq, Jordon, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, et cetera. KF: Like being passive bystanders. BR: We weren’t even passive bystanders, we were enemies. We did negative things. One of the interesting things is, whenever I bring up sort of a peaceful negotiation process or whenever I’m questioned by Arab diplomats or leaders, we talk about what needs to be done before reconciliation and compromise and every time they bring up, they say, “What about 242?” UN Resolution 242 is the resolution that demanded that Israel withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza. [15:00] They say the United States has always been so quick to implement any UN resolution that goes against Arabs. Iraq is a classic example, of course. They always are very consistent on enforcing UN resolutions, and yet every UN resolution against Israel you never support or take action and so your bias, in support for Israel, negates, and interferes with your effectiveness in brokering peace over fifty years, and you’ve alienated Muslims. All Muslims, 1.3 billion people, they’re not all alienated but they are all very critical of the policy with respect to the Arabs, and especially with respect to Israel. Every time a Palestinian kid gets tear-gassed, or picks up the tear-gas canister that says, “Made in the USA,” that’s not passive, that’s very aggressive and seen to be against the interests of the Palestinians. KF: Were you ever given an opportunity to work with American policy makers as you’ve… BR: I’ve made plenty of speeches but never in a direct way. No. I’ve done some briefings with State Department personnel, I’ve met with State Department personnel from time to time, but never really a formal process. But for the most part the bureaucrats in the state department aren’t interested. They think they know what needs to be known and they think that those of us who are trying to tell them what to do are pushing a private agenda rather than an enlightened diplomatic agenda. I’ve been very, very, critical of State Department people involved with the negotiations. We seldom have an accurate perspective. That’s a loaded statement, but I really do think some of our presidents were disastrous in terms of understanding this. Most Secretaries of State—we’ve had 6 some good Secretaries of States, some good ones—and some presidents. Jimmy Carter did some pretty good things with the Camp David Accords, and Clinton tried to do some things in Camp David and with The Taba talks in Egypt, but it was too little too late. We haven’t been very successful in our foreign policy. One of the things that’s kind of rewarding to me is, whenever I’m in an Arab country, just last week in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, people are very critical of American foreign policy, of American government, yet they’ve always been very kind and very supportive of Americans as individuals. I’ve never felt attacked, I’ve never felt any hostility, any rejection or any threat against me as a result of being American. Of course they know I don’t support American policy. But they do attribute it to the government and not to the people for the most part. However, the really extreme groups will go after any American as a symbolic statement. KF: What were you doing the last trip? BR: We were working with two groups. One is the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority which manages the portfolio of oil revenues in the United Arab Emirates. They want to change the company, to have more local employees. They want to Emiratize it. They want more Emirates rather than Americans and Brits and French [and] German executives. Our goal is to train the Emirate managers to become top leaders and manage the oil revenue for the country. They have a lot of expatriates. The population of the Emirates is 6 million, 4.8 million are foreign non-nationals. 1.2 million are native born. So the foreigners run the country. They don’t run the country, they manage the country. It’s run by a royal family cabinet, but they don’t have managers and democratic leaders to do the job. So that’s what we’re trying to do with the leadership training, leadership development. The second thing is working for Brad Cook, whose job as President of the Women’s College in Abu Dhabi, is education for leadership excellence. For his students, for the women students, and then for the larger group of Arab women that want to work in management in the larger sense, the education [is ] for leadership development. The Emirates are a good place for this because there are more women in positions of leadership than most other Arab countries. The Minister of Education is a woman, and the top entrepreneur in Dubai is a woman. And so, there are a fair number of women, and there is a lot of openness, a lot of opportunities. So to develop leaders from there is kind of a challenge to create a force for change in society. KF: Wow. That sounds fascinating. When you come back to Utah, do Utahns have a sense of what you’re doing to build peace? BR: Some. Not many. Most are shocked or surprised. Some are critical and think I’m on the enemy’s side. Some are afraid; they think I’m doing dangerous things. They say, “Aren’t you afraid to go into these places?” I say “No, I’m careful. But I’m not as afraid as I am when I go to New York or Los Angeles or Miami or Detroit or St. Louis.” I have a much greater chance of being a victim of violence in any major American city than I do anywhere in the Middle East, I think. That does not include Iraq, I’m not going to Iraq, 7 but that includes Jordon and Palestine and Israel, Egypt, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain. In those countries odds of violence are very low. There is an occasional incidence, but not much. Most Americans don’t understand it. They generalize from limited news or extensive news of limited events to the whole. They don’t understand that…I give lots of speeches. I probably average a speech every week or two, at least somewhere in the area. I did a couple in Salt Lake recently. People are always surprised, often supportive, often pleasantly surprised, but for the most part totally uninformed, totally unaware. A person recently said, “You’re doing this work. God’s got a war plan in that area and you’re getting in his way.” I just kind of smiled at that position and said, “Well, if God wants a war he could probably deliver it. But, from my understanding, God doesn’t want war. The message I get is of peace. I think that I am more working for peace rather than getting in the way of war. But there are a lot of people who have that very violent string of message to me that we ought to kill all the Muslims. KF: Here in Utah you hear that? BR: Yes. KF: Would you hear that elsewhere? BR: To some extent. More here, there is more of an identification with Israel, more of a conservative sort of bias—using military might to squash the evil doers—more of a symbol of right and wrong, less nuance, less breadth in perspective. That’s why those people who are involved in peace movements and doing things are so much more important in this culture because there is such a great need. Of course, I’m also comparing to my background in San Francisco. It’s much more of an open, liberal world. Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I taught for many years, is much more of a multicultural, open environment. Those are part of the reasons I came to Utah, kind of on a cause, a challenge to do something about it, to change the world. There are enough people who do respond that it’s encouraging to me. Not as many as I would like. KF: You came to Utah before you came to the Middle East? BR: Yes. I came to BYU in 1973 from the University of Michigan. I first went to the Middle East in 1980, but I didn’t do much. It was a sensitizing time, I read a lot, and then in 1989 I went back, and started working in a more focused way. KF: What was your sense of the change you were going to make here? BR: Well, I’m very critical of right-wing zealots. I’m very critical of narrow minded thinking. I’m very critical of people who don’t appreciate the cultures and values of others, and I saw those as critical questions to those critical issues. How do you open people’s mind? How do you create critical thinking among people? How do you moderate a rigid value 8 system? How do you create more tolerance, more openness? And a lot of that was racial at the time. KF: Here in Utah? BR: Well, in the nation, but especially in Utah. The racism was very troublesome to me, and I had been very involved in the civil rights activities, in work with the community in Ann Arbor and Detroit. In the South, I got shot at while organizing black cooperatives and agricultural cooperatives, between West Point and Tupelo, Mississippi. I worked with Martin Luther King and various civil rights groups in Michigan, organizing black banks. I first met Martin Luther King when he was just moving to transition from strictly civil rights, African American issues, to anti-war issues. That was when I first became involved in a peace movement. I went to Joan Baez’s school, the Center for Nonviolence, in Monterey, California. I went down and spent some time there, and on one occasion Martin Luther King was there. It was just before he made his famous Riverside Church speech against the war in Vietnam, and he was very hesitant to do it because most of his staff—Jesse Jackson, Henry Young, and Ralph Abernathy— said that if you take on the war you’ll lose the support of the administration. Because he had received a fair amount of support from both John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson in the racial issue. When Kennedy died, Johnson pursued the Vietnam War. They said, “If you criticize that then you’ll lose his support for your civil rights movement, and our movement will suffer.” It was very moving to hear him argue the fact that it was the right thing to do, independent of the consequences, and he felt that the consequences would be inevitable but he had to do this then because he had earned enough of a national reputation, as being a defender of right in the case of race, that people who listened to him felt connected. So he made his famous Riverside Church speech. One of the primary influences on the King was Joan Baez. She’d always been a peace activist. She was a good example for me. Her structure of being what you stand for was the one. And King and Joan Baez had gotten involved with Gandhi’s non-violent philosophy and other sorts of philosophical foundations for peace. Then when I got to Michigan I got very involved in civil rights activism, [with] various groups in Detroit—I was there during the Detroit riots—to try and to do training in cross-cultural communication. I worked with development programs in the South, to try and develop leaders and organize cooperatives, overcome racist economic and political oppression in the South. A few things along the way sort of evolved into a bigger program of peacemaking, which is the paradigm I’ve adopted away from conflict resolution to peacemaking, which is a more proactive, a pre-emptive strategy rather than waiting until a conflict breaks out and trying to solve it. If it does break out you need to try and do it, but you try and prevent it in the first place, hence the peacemaking philosophy. [30:00] 9 KF: And so you came to BYU to teach. How did you—I’m real curious about this because I’m a teacher, too—how did you teach the peacemaking and the critical thinking to your students. BR: Well, it’s not easy. The first way you do it is to model it, is to behave that way yourself. I’m always intrigued at people who teach a value, participation for example, but yet resist any participation in their own process. When a student questions them, they destroy the student. They’re not willing to live and walk the walk. They talk it but they don’t do it. So that’s the first thing, is to be open, willing to change your mind, to take all points of view, to respect other people, to demonstrate that respect when you talk about them, behave with respect whether it’s gender or race or ethnicity or religion. I think that’s the first thing is to walk, but then you have to give people experiences. You have to get them in the field. You have to get them in a place where they’re doing something. During a few years we did a lot of work with Lincoln Elementary School in Salt Lake, which is one of the very most difficult schools; enormous turnover, dozens of different languages, and kids who don’t get any food anywhere, except school, and come to school with guns and 8 year olds with knives. So getting students working with those kids was a major, major, issue in loving, understanding kids from the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Vietnamese kids, Cambodian kids, Tongan and Samoan kids, Mexican- American kids, and getting students involved with that kind of support, you have them read things. Every class I’ve taught for thirty years I have students read literature, novels, or historical accounts of a major racial issue. They don’t have to read about everything. Chinese, or Arab, Jewish kids, the Holocaust, whatever the issue, you try to balance it out over the long run so you’re looking at Native Americans, African Americans, so you read material that captures the essence of the conflicts, tension of those groups, and you talk about them. You have people come in and talk about them. They’re part of that ethnic group narrative. I use the book Blood Brothers, which was written by Chacour, a Palestinian Catholic Priest, a pacifist, a wonderful guy. They read his book, and then I bring in Arab students to talk about it, and to reflect on it, and Jewish students to talk about it, and the students get involved and start to understand. You read Gabriel Marquez, about Latino kids, and we’ll talk of Jewish kids, and Betty Bao Lord for Chinese kids. You try and capture what’s going on. The Kite Runner for Afghan kids, and the struggles of these cultures. But you have to read a lot of multicultural ethnic material to give students a vicarious experience. I can take them to Salt Lake but I can’t take them to Vietnam, I can’t take them to Egypt. We can do a little bit with Native American groups, but it’s critical that we read. Then we do a lot of things in the classroom. I try and role play, find out how the youth feel about a problem. I tell stories of other students. A student that came to me one time when I was teaching in Palestine. He said that he needed to talk. His mother had been offered $50,000 for him to become a suicide bomber. He needed to talk the thing through. I’d never had that in Utah or California or Michigan. That’s a brutal discussion with an eighteen year old whose mother (his father’s dead and he has a lot of siblings) feels that $50,000 would be an enormous amount of money for him to get on a bus and blow himself up. 10 KF: His mother asked him? BR: His mother was offered the money for him to do it, so yeah, his mother was willing to consider it. So, those kinds of opportunities. Most of our students here don’t have any firsthand experience with that kind of thing, so as you relate that and talk through it and have them read and think and push their assumptions, you can open doors. And then the critical thinking, same thing. The critical thinking is about the conflict, the leadership, the power, the multicultural issues, and so you teach the critical thinking as you analyze what’s going on in the world. You critique. And you show movies, you show videos of what’s going on. KF: What courses did you teach? BR: The course where I was most directly involved in this was an honors seminar, people I taught there every semester at BYU. And then the other was in organizational behavior class, for undergraduates. [That] was a place where an important part of the class was devoted to that material. My graduate classes were in organizational behavior, organization theory, where you really can get into those things, and ethics, business ethics, which opens the door to all the issues of discrimination and power and conflict and truth and advertising, various topics that relate directly to critical thinking and conflict issues. KF: Do you think it made a difference in your students? BR: Oh, yeah. I have lots of evidence of students who write back a year later, five years later, ten years later, and told me what they are doing, and how I’ve affected them, and why they’re doing it. I have five or ten of them that have sent letters and messages; a lot of them are very involved in international work. I have many students who are international negotiators and facilitators, and working abroad, having gotten involved in U.S. companies abroad, or local companies in Japan and China, Vietnam, Egypt or something. Just last week, I met this former student who is on the faculty at American University of Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, a wonderful person, and often you trace it back to some experience, something in class. You know, after 9/11 I got emails from students in Palestine and Jordan. One student wrote saying, “You and Mrs. Lois (my wife) are the only Americans I know. I just had to tell you how sorry I am and how sad I am. This does not represent the Arab world or the Islamic world that I’m part of. I just wanted you to know that we also want to eliminate the violence.” Those kinds of messages are nice to get. We have lots of them. That’s better data than a test score at the end of a semester. KF: You were born in Heber City, lived twelve years there, moved to San Francisco. Lots of people have lived in Utah and California, surely LDS. Not very many have become a peacemaker to the level that you are. What made you different? 11 BR: That’s hard to say. There are a thousand events that contribute. I guess I would attribute it primarily to my father. My father was not educated. Education was not part of our culture but he was a very sweet, very tolerant, person. He always went out of his way to help people to do things. My mother was more of an intellectual, not in the academic sense, but more of the life of the mind. She pushed me hard on academic issues. It was a nice combination. Dad pushed me to love and serve and reach out and understand people and be tolerant and patient, and mother pushed me to be rigorous and precise and analytical and to get good grades and so forth. Dad was a liberal Democrat, mother was a conservative Republican. Mother was ultra-orthodox, Dad was pragmatic and flexible. So I grew up in that home with a kind of tension, a kind of fun tension, a kind of tension that could have been negative, could have had a negative consequence, frustrating and lack of focus, but instead I’ve tried to pick up both, I think. When I went to college, my mother wanted me to go to BYU, and to her dying day she felt that one of her biggest failures in life was not making sure that I went to BYU, that would have made me a good person, but instead I went to Berkeley, and she felt that was my ruin. Dad thought that was pretty neat but she thought it was my ruin to go to that evil school. But I went there, and I had classes from people who were absolutely brilliant, and moved me to care and do things. [end of tape 1, side A] [45:00] [tape 1, side B begins several minutes into side B] KF: So you had professors there. BR: When I went to Berkeley—Of course, growing up in San Francisco opened a lot of doors and opened my eyes to a lot of things, and I learned to really appreciate the world and to love diversity, and that was an important part of it. And then I would see that violated, and it would hurt. I saw the gangs in San Francisco. I saw the Mexican- American kids and the Chinese kids and the African-American kids and that, for some reason, affected me more than it did a lot of my friends and colleagues. I felt more strongly about it, and I think, partly from my dad. Then I went to Berkeley which was a very exciting place, a very aggressive place in terms of ideas, and creating critical thinking, and creating a view of the world. I had some wonderful teachers who influenced me. Then I was commissioned as an army officer, and was in Germany at the height of the Cold War. I saw the negative forces there, and I felt so strongly about how easy it is to break down rational thinking and humane values, how quickly it can disintegrate into a world of violence and chaos, and decided I needed to understand more. Then I went back to graduate school to learn more and to try and make a difference. I always wanted to make a difference. I never knew how to do it, or never knew exactly what I wanted to do in order to make a difference, but I just knew I wanted to. So then I got caught up again with an incredible mentor, Ray Miles, at 12 Berkeley, whom I worked with extensively, and that became important. That’s when I got involved, when I met Joan Baez and Martin Luther King. It was the beginning of the civil rights movement. I met James Farmer and Eldridge Cleaver and the things they were doing with CORE and the Black Power movement, and the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. I was elected president of the Doctoral Student Association during the Free Speech Movement. We formed a union, a local American Federation of Teachers. We didn’t know what we were doing but we set up a picket line on campuses, and teamsters honored it, and we closed down campus. I saw what you can do if you really organize, and have power, and care, and want to do something. Part of it was accidental but sometimes that’s all you’ve got. Then I accepted a position at the University of Michigan. I was in Detroit during the Detroit Riots in 1967. I worked with black groups there and I tried to organize. Each time, each place I’ve been, there’s been a major event that opened a door, and I could have gone through it or not, and I always chose to go through it. As you suggest, doors are open for other people and they don’t go through them. I’m not sure why. It was interesting, just before my father died I had just come back from a period in the Middle East and I went to visit him. He was living in Phoenix at the time, and we were talking—and dad was almost ninety—and he said, “Now I know why we moved to San Francisco,” because I ask him every time and he says, “I don’t know. I just wanted to do it.” He says, “Now I know.” He says, “I doubt that you would have had the opportunities to do the things you’ve done if we had stayed on a farm in Heber City.” He said, “So.” KF: He was proud of you. BR: It wasn’t the announced decision, process, or the goal but, in retrospect, he felt that he was inspired to do it for the benefit of his kids. KF: That’s pretty amazing. BR: It’s a good story for me, personally. KF: Are you still active LDS? BR: Yes. KF: You are one of two active LDS people who have been interviewed out of the 48. Emma Lou Thayne was the other one. Do you know Emma Lou Thayne? Oh, gosh. Many who are no longer active have been interviewed, including some who have been all over the world with parents in the State Department even, and very active parents. Why is there that phenomenon where so many leave the Church and yet some of you don’t? BR: It’s a good question, and it’s really a subtle thing, I think. For many people the Church is a very rigid, black and white, good/evil, top-down authority, high compliance kind of system of organization. For those people, when things don’t quite fit, when you’re on 13 the edge of social or economic or political or theological issues, they can’t reconcile, they can’t handle the dissonance. I have always liked dissonance. I have always found it very motivating. Others find it very frustrating, very negative, and they have to avoid it. In the dissonance reduction-process they go one way or the other, either they go full in and don’t do anything else, or full out and do whatever else. For me it’s never been that way. There are no absolutes in my world. They may be there but I just don’t have them. For me, everything is relative. For me, the Church has always been a core kind of foundation of values, of community, of commitment, of service, of love, and those values work well in what I do. The hard-line, rigid interpretations don’t work well for me, and I’ve never been bothered by them. Part of it is the tolerance for ambiguity, the idea that there are lots of shades of grey and lots of areas where it’s not right or wrong, but you’re choosing between two goods. You’re interpreting on your own. I think there are very few things that are core to a theological position. Other people think there are a lot of things. For me there are very few, and I take my cues from the Savior, who is a pretty powerful teacher of peace, and love, and tolerance, and making a difference, and reaching out, crossing bridges, and building bridges. So those are the values I’ve internalized. To be in an organization of conflict not only doesn’t bother me. It’s kind of exhilarating. For other people it’s very negative, very frustrating. I don’t mind disagreeing with people. I don’t mind if people disagree with me. One of the reasons I came to BYU was because all of my friends thought I couldn’t stand it, and all my enemies knew that BYU couldn’t stand me, and I had to prove them both wrong. I can transcend. I think that’s probably the key issue is that I’ve developed a lifetime of transcending issues, conflicts, people, theology, teachers who I didn’t like, or who didn’t like me, countries, leaders, deans who liked, or didn’t like me, and [I]had to transcend. I never let a person get in the way of me doing what I wanted to do or what I thought was right. I never let a supervisor—I never blamed anybody else. I never let them get in the way of me doing what I wanted to do or thought was important. I did learn at a very early age how to manage organizations. That is one of my skills. I do know how to organize through, or around, or within, or between organizations, how to get what I need out of it, and how to prevent the rigidity for effecting. That’s a rare kind of thing. There are other people who know how to do that but most are intimidated, or victimized, in that process. I know when I served as Dean everybody was either blaming me or they didn’t take responsibility for their own behavior, for their own success or failure, they had to be blaming somebody else. You have to learn how to take responsibility for yourself, learn how to manage the systems you put forth, but I don’t have any better answer to the question. A lot of it is just idiosyncratic, people are different. I don’t know why so many people are so troubled by living with dissonance, living with ambiguity, in accepting responsibility for what they think and do rather than deferring to somebody else. And that’s the danger of a top-down organization. It’s the conflict of the Catholic Church, with the Pope and his pronouncements; any authoritarian system has real problems. People who need structure and need answers have to go all in or all out, they can’t compromise. And to be an effective person, in a conflict world, you have to be able to adapt. 14 KF: It makes sense to me. BR: You have to decide, with all the organizations you’re a part of, how much of it you accept and how much of it you don’t, how much of it influences you and what doesn’t, how do you take out of it what is good and what is bad? And that’s a big problem with Islam in the world. How do you take out of it what is good and somehow suppress that which is bad? How do you find the good in any system? We’re seeing this now in the national political system with Mitt Romney and the attacks on Mormonism. It’s accepted by so many people that [Mormonism is] a vicious cult wishing to make one of them fit to be president. It’s an interesting debate. It’s an interesting issue in the way people raise it in the way they talk and the things they say. To me it’s very interesting to observe this process. It’s hard for most people to do that. KF: Anything else you would like to share? BR: Oh, dear. One thing that has been very helpful to me is the U.S. Institute of Peace. I would suggest that to people. [John] Paul Lederach is a fellow of the U.S. Institute of Peace. It’s kind of a quasi-supported organization by the government, but it’s very independent and they do some really some really good work in conflict resolution, and peacemaking, and solving world problems, and research. Their publications are superb. Paul’s book on peacemaking is one of the best things I’ve read. [1:00] When I read something—I read a lot, that’s another variable. You’ve got to read at least two books a week to begin to understand—but Lederach’s book on peacemaking, maybe it’s peace building, whatever it is, but the U.S. Institute—its usip.org—has a wealth of information, and Lederach happens to be a Mennonite who is translating his Mennonite philosophy of non-violence and pacifism into a worldwide strategy of sustainable communities. Good guy, really good guy. KF: Is that in D.C.? The Institute? BR: Yes, it’s in Washington D.C. I almost accepted a fellowship there a few years ago, but I didn’t want to do the routine, because I’m my own person. I don’t like to be limited. Maybe I made a mistake, maybe it would have been helpful but it’s a very good organization to be involved in. People ought to know about those organizations, Save the Children, and organizations like that, that reach out to make a difference on the ground. Peace Now with Israel, a combination of Jewish and Palestinian people, headed up by two key individuals, Elias Chacour—and I talked about the Palestinian Catholic priest—and Yael Dayan, Moshe Dayan’s daughter, a member of the Knesset, a Labor Party peace activist who is really good. Her father is one of the most famous generals in Israeli history, and she is just becoming this very articulate, passionate spokesperson for peace. Organizations like that, I want people to become acquainted with, trying to 15 understand the organization. They have to seek it out, and it doesn’t come to without that. You have to be very aggressively pursuing these options. You have to care to reach far and wide and build bridges of understanding. That’s probably enough. [Tape interrupted] KF: Bonner just talked about working in camps in Jordan. BR: The interesting thing about the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan is that Jordan is the only Arab country that gives Palestinians citizenship, and people in the camps can vote and can be a part of a larger country’s political process, which they can’t in other places. The camps are better served there. The government is much more proactive. You saw, just in the last weeks, the last days, about violence in the refugee camps in Lebanon up north by Tripoli. I’ve been to the camps in Lebanon, and they are the saddest camps anywhere in the world. It’s truly ironic that in an Arab country they treat the Palestinian Arabs so poorly. The living conditions are a disaster. They’re not great in Jordan but they’re much, much, better and there are opportunities. The schools are really pretty good in the camps in Jordan. The healthcare is, not great, but at least it’s reasonable. It’s not the case in the camps in Gaza, it’s not the case in the camps in Lebanon, and other places. The schools are really quite good, the healthcare is reasonable. There are working opportunities for people in the camps. They’re quite open camps. People can move in and out. KF: Can move into the communities? BR: Yeah, which they can’t do in other countries. Jordan does not try to keep the camps hostage, and the other countries do. They use it as a hammer to beat Israel in the world dialogue about the abuse in the Arab countries by Israel and the United States, and Jordan doesn’t do that. In the camps they provide education and all the other opportunities for camp members. Some of the people stay in the camp because they still have a dream of going back to their homes in Israel, in what is now Israel, in Palestine. That’s an interesting story. A lot of people still have the key to their door of a house that was destroyed fifty years ago, or their house is there and occupied by Jewish inhabitants now. But their stories are very touching and very telling. There are some camps in Jordan that are not quite so good. And Zarqa, which is the home of Zarqawi where the Arabs say he was killed, and he was a Palestinian in a Jordanian camp. The Zarqa camp is not a very pleasant place. There is a lot of violence there. But, for the most part, the Jordanian camps are really pretty good, much more positive, and more opportunities there. KF: Aren’t there Iraqi refugee camps in Jordan, or not? BR: There have been Iraqi refugee camps. In fact, one of the people I’ve worked with extensively was Rebecca Salti, who was a Mormon activist in Jordan, she’s a Bennion, 16 from Salt Lake, and her husband was an Arab banker. Rebecca has done a lot of really creative work. After the first Gulf War she set up refugee camps and processed a million Iraqis through there and did a really good job. She is a very impressive person. KF: And she still lives in Jordan?

8
a former student’s musings on the legacy of
j. bonner ritchie at uvu and beyond
VERBATIM
FA L L 2 0 1 2 | V E R B AT I M
LESSONS LEARNED
9
y first encounter with my
lifelong teacher was humiliating. In a graduate
class in 1985, Bonner Ritchie read one of “the
better student papers” in class. Without identifying
the author, he described the paper’s
logic and both publically praised and took issue
with the student author. The room of competitive
business students quickly filled with envy.
“Who was he talking about?”
Bonner turned to me, and I had to admit
before my mocking peers that I had written
the paper in a rush weeks ago and then forgotten
about it. My "almost" moment in the
sun collapsed into humiliation.
But that moment has lead to a friendship
and mentorship that has lasted more than
25 years. Bonner hired me to teach at BYU
and at UVU. Later, as department chair, I
hired him out of his second retirement to
teach at UVU. We have traveled, consulted,
written and taught together. My youngest
son’s middle name is Bonner.
As I teach and talk in different venues,
I sometimes hear Bonner’s words in my
voice. These “Bonnerisms” include:
“Be more than a student. Be
a scholar.”
Bonner quickly distinguishes between
a “grade-getting student” and a “learning
scholar” in his class. To Bonner, learning is a
sacred activity. Students, in one definition,
turn the part of the responsibility of learning
over to the teacher. They ask what to
read, what they should know and how they
should do their assignments. Scholars learn
by exploring. They define their own path
and set their own direction.
“make a proposal.”
With the freedom to learn comes the
responsibility to innovate. Many student
scholars have to learn quickly that Bonner
expects them to clearly define a learning
path, create criteria and justify their efforts.
He often floods the room with feedback, as
he did on my first encounter.
“things are managed.
people are led.”
I have heard Bonner, as an advisor to literally
hundreds of business and political leaders,
help them distinguish between leading
people and managing things. “Things need
to be managed,” he would say. “Budgets, inventory,
supply chains need to be managed.
But the work of leaders is with people.”
“every decision is an
ethical decision.”
For Bonner, there is no shade where you
can stand outside of the bright rays of ethical
values. Choices are not easy. They often include
choosing between the needs or rights of
an individual and the long-term health of the
organization. Bonner would often say, “Organizations
do not have ethics. People do.”
“organizations are
corrupting.”
It seems harsh, but organizations blind
us. In preserving organizations, leaders often
are corrupted by power and become
willing to hurt individuals for the sake of order.
This is a persistent force in most organizations,
even churches and universities.
“you see the future
in children.”
Bonner often tells the story of being asked
to consult with the Palestinian leadership
prior to the Oslo Summit in 1992. After long
nights of debate between the various factions
and leaders preparing to meet with
the Israelis, Yasser Arafat turned to Bonner.
Bonner took from his bag a pile of pictures,
taken by his wife, Lois Ritchie, of Palestinian
children. As the group looked at the
pictures of children, the mood shifted and
the future of peace became clear. The Oslo
effort not only won a Nobel Peace Prize for
the leaders involved, but was also the last
serious effort to bring peace to that region.
I have seen Bonner use those same pictures
with business leaders and students to
the same effect. The future is always in children,
and it is always in learning.
SCOTT HAMMOND IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
BUSINESS MANAGEMENT AT UVU AND A NATIONALLY
RENOWNED CONSULTANT AND SPEAKER.
editor’s note:
the following was written by a former student of J. Bonner ritchie's as a tribute to the retiring academic titan. in
a career spanning four decades, ritchie built a reputation as one of the world’s great thinkers on matters of organizational
behavior and conflict resolution. ritchie spent a combined 33 years on the faculty at the university
of michigan and Byu. While at Byu, ritchie worked directly with israelis and palestinians to change long-held
paradigms and effect a lasting compromise between the sparring groups. in 2001, ritchie came out of retirement
to help build uvu’s Woodbury school of Business, which is now the largest business school in the utah system of
higher education. many of uvu’s administrators and faculty, including the author of this article, can trace their academic
history through ritchie’s teachings in leadership, conflict resolution and organizational philosophy. ritchie
gave his symbolic last lecture in the spring of 2012 before retiring again — this time, for good.
BY SCOTT HAMMOND
PHOTO BY JACOB SCOTT

Peace Facilitator And Scholar J. Bonner Ritchie
To Present Last Class At UVU
13 APRIL 2012 NO COMMENT
April 12, 2012
For Immediate Release
University Marketing & Communications: Mike Rigert (801) 863-6807
Written by: Cheryl Kamenski (801) 863-6351
J. Bonner Ritchie, who has worked to make the world a more humane place through peace building and has become an institution in the field
of international organizational behavior, will hold his last class at Utah Valley University on April 17 at 6 p.m. in the Sorensen Student Center
Ragan Theater. The event is free and open to the public.
“Bonner is a master teacher. He has the ability to draw students into a dialogue that encourages them to think about, and evaluate, their ideas
and positions on relevant issues of the day,” said Ian Wilson, UVU vice president for academic affairs. “Students have benefitted from his vast
knowledge and experience with organizations both nationally and internationally. He has broadened their understanding of key international
issues and helped them to see different perspectives on complex problems.”
In 2001, Ritchie came out of retirement to help build UVU’s Woodbury School of Business, which is now the largest business school in the Utah
System of Higher Education. Many of UVU’s alumni and faculty can trace their academic history through Ritchie’s teachings in leadership,
conflict resolution and organizational philosophy.
“Bonner Ritchie represents the best that academia has to offer. He is a scholar-activist whose work has not only advanced the frontiers of
knowledge, but also moved the frontiers of practice. In so doing, Bonner has made the world a better place,” said Norman Wright, dean of the
Woodbury School of Business. “We have been extremely fortunate that, as one of the brightest minds of his generation of scholars, Bonner
decided to spend the last few years of his full time career assisting the Woodbury School of Business and UVU in growing into our role as an
increasingly serious institution of higher learning.”
The 2012 UVU Presidential Award recipient for lifetime service, Ritchie helped mediate peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine and
has served as a consultant to some of the world’s largest organizations in order to create positive change.
Ritchie called upon his leadership skills in 1989 when he went to work at the BYU Jerusalem Center in efforts to build bridges to the
Palestinians. Ritchie spent more than six years in the Middle East and helped change the paradigm of thinking about the world from an “all or
nothing strategy” to a “reasonable negotiation and compromise.”
Ritchie’s teachings of conflict resolution and negotiation skills at Middle Eastern universities and organizations helped influence today’s leaders
who are working to influence perspectives in the Arab world.
Each spring, UVU’s Peace & Justice Studies program hosts the J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice. The conference was named
for Ritchie to honor him and his peace building efforts. Previous topics have included solutions to global calamities, international border issues
and history and prevention of genocide. Next year’s dialogue will be on the relationship between global climate change and violence.
Prior to joining UVU in 2001, Ritchie was on the faculty at BYU for 27 years and on the faculty at the University of Michigan for six years.
Before that he was involved in civil rights activism with several groups in Detroit.
A native of Heber City, Utah, Ritchie grew up in San Francisco and graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree
in economics and a doctorate in economics with an emphasis in labor issues on conflict negotiation and bargaining theory. He and his wife,
Lois, have been married for nearly 30 years and have four children and eight grandchildren.
J. Bonner Ritchie

THE UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
invites you and a guestto the
Awards of
Excellence Banquet
to honor exemplary achievements of UVU faculty and staff
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
UCCU Center — Presidential South 7 p.m.
Required RSVP by March 20, 2012,
to the President's Office 801-863-8459
UTAH VALLEY
UVU
UNIVERSITY

Tuesday, March 24:
8:30-9:45
Kenneth Campbell, Stopping Genocide:The Problem of Political Will
10:00-11:15
Helen Fein, The Past and Present of Genocide Prevention (with References to
Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Darfur)
1:00-2:15
Samuel Totten, Sudan: A Genocidal State
2:30-3:45
Ervin Staub, Overcoming Evil: Understanding, Preventing, and Reconciling
after Mass Killing and Genocide
7:00-8:30
J. Bonner Ritchie, Finding Hope in a “Hopeless” World
Wednesday, March 25:
9:00-9:50
Workshop on genocide research: What it is, Where to do it, Why it needs to be
done...
10:00-10:50
Panel discussion with Drs. Campbell, Fein, Totten, and Staub
11:00-11:50
Witness, dance performance in Ragan Theatre
Angela Banchero-Kelleher, choreographer
12:00-12:50
Student Presentation
An Overview of Genocide with Focus on Rwanda presented by: Emily
Gillespie, Ashley Thalman, Rachel Potter, Sarah Heywood, Annette Marvin
1:00-1:50
Rocky Anderson, High Road for Human Rights
2:00-2:50
Student papers
3:00-3:50
Student papers
The 2009 J. Bonner Ritchie Dialogue on Peace and Justice:
UVU Peace and Justice Studies Presents
Genocide: Histories, Evils, and Prevention
Featuring these Eminent Visiting Scholars:
Helen Fein is an Associate with the International Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. She is a
historical sociologist who is author and editor of 12 books and monographs on genocide, human rights, collective violence, and altruism
and many articles. She serves as Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Genocide (New York) and was a founder and first
President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Her many books include, Human Rights and Wrongs: Slavery, Terror,
Genocide and Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust.
Samuel Totten is a Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Arkansas. He is a member of the Council of the Institute
on the Holocaust and Genocide (Jerusalem), and the Centre for Genocide Studies (Sydney, New South Wales). He is the co-editor of
Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal. He served as one of the investigators with the U.S. State Department's
Atrocities Documentation Project, and has spent many months on the ground in Rwanda (on a Fulbright) and Darfur. His many books
include: Genocide in Darfur: Investigating the Atrocities in the Sudan; The Prevention of Genocide: An Annotated Bibliography;
Genocide at the Millennium; Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Testimony; Teaching about Genocide; Teaching the
Holocaust at the University and College Levels; Genocide in the Twentieth Century: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Testimony; and
Genocide in the Twentieth Century.
Kenneth J. Campbell is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Delaware. He has contributed articles about
genocide to Genocide at the Millennium: A Critical Bibliographic Review; and The Encyclopedia of Government and Politics. He's written
Genocide and the Global Village, and A Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam, and the Hard Lessons of War. He is currently at work on
books entitled, Power and Morality in the Study of International Relations; and Genocide Hawks: The Growing Demand for the Use of
International Military Force to Suppress Genocide.
Ervin Staub is Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has taught at Harvard, Stanford, and the
London School of Economic and Political Science. His books include, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group
Violence and The Psychology of Good and Evil. He is writing a book entitled Prevention and Reconciliation: Genocide, Mass Killing, and
Terrorism. He is the past president of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict and Violence. He has served, or serves, on the editorial
boards of the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, and Genocide Studies: An International
Journal.
Tuesday March 24th and Wednesday March 25th
Utah Valley University
For More Information Please Contact
Dr. Michael Minch, 801.863.7482
mminch@uvu.edu
uvu.edu/peaceandjustice
Photo of skull from Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia
UVU Peace and Justice
Studies thanks The Center for
Engaged Learning, The
International Center, and The
Utah Democracy Project for
their generous support of this
Dialogue
Unless Noted, all events held in
LI120, Library Lecture Hall
Utah Valley University
800 W. University Pkwy, Orem

Board of Trustees Awards of Excellence
Matt Bambrough, creative director, University Marketing & Communications
Kate McPherson, professor of English literature, College of Humanities & Social Sciences
D.J. Smith, associate director, Athletics
Richard Tolman, professor of biology, College of Science & Health
Ian Wilson, vice president , Academic Affairs
Matthew S. Holland, President
Utah Valley University
Greg S. Butterfield, Chair
UVU Board of T rustees
2011-2012
Trustees Awards & Presidential Excellence Awards
The University Awards of Excellence program recognizes faculty and staff who dedicate their time and talents to students, scholarship and the advancement
of higher education. This year, the UVU Board of Trustees elected to recognize five employees for their contributions to forwarding UVU’s mission. The
Presidential Awards of Excellence highlight faculty and staff for their efforts in key areas related to UVU’s mission and core themes.
Presidential Awards of Excellence
Janet Colvin, scholarship and teaching
Michelle Kearns, student success
Jane Loftus, inclusion and service
Brett McKeachnie, excellence
J. Bonner Ritchie, lifetime service
Jonathan Westover, engagement
Divisional Awards of Excellence
Deans’ Awards of Excellence
Faculty Senate Awards of Excellence
PACE Awards of Excellence
As I conclude my third year as president of Utah Valley University, I still marvel at how often I am moved by the dedication and
commitment of the employees of this institution. From the faculty to the staff to the administration, everyone at UVU seems to
go the extra mile in doing his or her part. Such broad effort truly is one of the great hallmarks of UVU.
One of the practical problems presented by this nearly universal commitment to excellence, however, is the difficulty of selecting
just a few for special recognition each year. In spite of that challenge, it is my pleasure to formally congratulate and thank a
handful of people from the UVU community for demonstrating superior service in executing the essential functions and core
aims of this university. The work being recognized here is tremendous. A heartfelt thanks to all for playing such a vital role at
this important time in UVU’s history.
It is a privilege for members of the Board of Trustees to join with the UVU community in honoring you as members of the
University family in your pursuit of excellence. Tonight we recognize the efforts of a select few who have distinguished
themselves through outstanding service to the students, the institution and the community.
We congratulate those who are being honored. We thank you for demonstrating exceptional commitment in fulfilling your
assignments and for your dedication to the ideals and mission of UVU.
As Trustees, we acknowledge the contributions made by all the faculty and staff of the University. On behalf of the Board, I
thank you for your service, and reaffirm the commitment of the Board to support UVU’s ongoing dedication to student success.
UNIVERSITY e.AwARDs of GXCELLENCE
PRESIDENT 's cti\4EssAGE
'BOARD of 'TRUSTEES e5WEssAGE
Matt Bambrough
Matt Bambrough has worked as a graphic design specialist in University Marketing & Communications for more than seven
years, including more than three in his current role as creative director. He has also taught graphic design classes as an adjunct
faculty member in UVU’s Art & Visual Communications department.
Bambrough has been instrumental in developing UVU’s recruitment marketing campaign, which is a key tool in helping the
institution’s recruiters convey its unique value to prospective students and their parents. Bambrough also leads a team of
designers and photographers who manage the visual aesthetic for UVU’s marketing campaigns. Bambrough’s proficiency as a
visual artist is all the more impressive given the fact that he suffers from quadriplegia that affects not only his legs but also his
hands, which are critical tools for an artist.
Bambrough and his wife, Krista, have been married for 13 years and have three children. His hobbies include boating, public
speaking, biking and playing wheelchair rugby.
top
Kate McPherson
Kate McPherson has taught at UVU since 2000 and is currently a professor of English literature. She is a renowned scholar on
Shakespeare and has authored or co-authored more than a dozen articles, books and reviews. She will become director of the
UVU Honors Program in July.
In addition to being a wellrespected teacher in the classroom, McPherson has used en-gaged learning projects to demonstrate
the broad and timeless appeal of Shakespeare’s works. She serves as resident scholar for the Grassroots Shakespeare
Company, an original practices performance group created by two of her students, and she is a judge for the Utah High School
Shakespeare Competition. Under her direction, students in an upperdivision Shakespeare class mentored incarcerated young
men at the Slate Canyon Youth Center in the study and performance of a Shakespeare play.
McPherson and her husband of 17 years, UVU alumnus Michael Nagro, have one daughter, Miranda. The family is excited to
travel to Spain this summer following a study abroad program McPherson is directing in London.
top
D.J Smith
D.J. Smith has spent more than 27 years at UVU and has served in his current role as associate director of athletics since
2003. Prior to joining UVU, Smith earned bachelor and master degrees in recreational education from BYU and a Doctor of
Education degree in the same field from the University of Utah.
Over the course of nearly three decades, Smith has held nearly every responsibility in UVU’s athletics department, including
fundraising, sports information and game management — he has even driven the team bus in a pinch. He won national awards
for the media guides he created and has been active in working with other programs in the conference to develop Web content
and build out their individual athletics operations. Smith was instrumental when UVU athletics made the leap from junior college
status to full NCAA Division I com-petition in 2009.
Smith and his wife, Roberta, have six children and 20 grandchildren. His hobbies include singing, dancing and painting.
top
Richard Tolman
Richard Tolman joined UVU in 2003 as a professor of biology after spending more than two decades in the same role at BYU.
Prior to that, he led research and curriculum development at the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study between 1969 and 1982.
He earned bachelor and master degrees from the University of Utah before completing a Ph.D. in science education at Oregon
State University.
Tolman came to UVU to build the institution’s baccalaureate program in science education, which was a collaborative project
between the College of Science & Health and School of Education. In addition to developing and refining curriculum, Tolman
has cultured excellent relationships with local school districts to provide opportunities for UVU students and graduates. Tolman
is regarded as one of the top science educators in Utah and has a national reputation for excellence in teaching and curriculum
development.
Tolman and his wife of 47 years, Bonnie, have four children: Alicia, Brett, David and Matthew. They also have six grandchildren,
with whom Tolman enjoys fishing and other outdoor activities.
top
Ian Wilson
During more than two decades at UVU, Ian Wilson has served in leadership positions rang-ing from dean to vice president of
multiple campus divisions. An expert in the area of organizational behavior, Wilson served as chair of the business
administration department at Mount Royal University in his native Alberta, Canada.
Since coming to UVU in 1989, Wilson has had his repeated attempts at settling into a teaching role thwarted by calls for him to
assume the leadership mantle. He was dean of the Woodbury School of Business from 1989 to 2001 and was interim dean
from 2008 to 2010. He also worked as associate vice president of Institutional Advancement from 2001-2002 before being
named vice president of Institutional Advancement & Marketing, a capacity he served in from 2002-2006. In spite of his intention
to return to the classroom in 2010, he accepted President Holland’s request for him to lead UVU’s Office of Academic Affairs as
vice president.
Wilson and his wife, Jeanne, have been married for 39 years and have four children. He enjoys reading, running and rooting for
his favorite hockey teams, the Calgary Flames and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
top
Janet Colvin
Janet Colvin won a number of distinctions for her excellent teaching during this academic year, including the Distance
Education Teacher of the Year Award and the Top Paper Award at the international conference for the National Communication
Association. An assistant professor of communication at UVU, Colvin is named in more than a dozen academic papers and has
given scholarly presentations around the world.
As the Presidential Award winner for teaching and scholarship, Colvin represents the high level of commitment to teaching and
learning among UVU faculty. She credits the UVU administration with enabling her to make constructive suggestions in the spirit
of constantly improving the learning environment at UVU. She finds satisfaction in participating in scholarly projects, developing
new academic programs and interacting with her colleagues across campus.
Colvin and her husband have four children and six grandchildren. She taught piano for many years before returning to graduate
school to prepare to teach in higher education, and she enjoys reading, traveling and doing crossword puzzles.
top
Michelle Kearns
Michelle Kearns began her career at UVU in 1992 and spent 17 years in the Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships. Prior to
taking her current position as director of student success and retention, Kearns served as assistant dean in University College
at UVU. She won UVU’s Distinguished Employee Award in 2003 and the Staff Excellence Award in 2005.
The Presidential Award winner for student success, Kearns is a tireless advocate for the importance of getting students
committed to their success in higher education from the time they first set foot on campus. Her work in this area was
acknowledged during the 2011-2012 academic year with a nomination for the National First Year Student Advocate Award.
Kearns has presented on student success and retention concepts nationally and internationally and is well respected in these
important areas of university support.
Kearns’ greatest joy comes from raising her three children, Cody, Shelby and Shalyse, who are all actively involved in activities
ranging from dance to piano to baseball. She also enjoys playing the piano, reading, traveling and spending time in her parents’
cabin in Scofield, Utah.
top
Jane Loftus
A native of Scotland, Jane Loftus came to the U.S. in 1996 to pursue a master’s degree and Ph.D. from BYU. She came to UVU
in 2005 to teach developmental math and received tenure in 2011.
The Presidential Award winner for inclusion and service, Loftus is an example of UVU’s ef-forts to extend opportunities to
underserved and disadvantaged populations. In 2007, Lof-tus and a few colleagues visited Legacy High School, a secondary
school in Springville, Utah, for young single mothers. Impressed by the school’s efforts to serve teens under difficult
circumstances, Loftus lead out on developing a tutoring program to supplement Legacy’s classroom instruction. The tutoring
program utilizes UVU developmental math faculty and students who serve as mentors. In addition to tutoring, the program has
brought Legacy students to the UVU campus to connect them to the university environment. So far, Loftus’ efforts have helped
23 girls attend UVU or the Mountainland Applied Technology Center after finishing at Legacy.
Loftus has two sons — Jason, 23, and Michael, 21 — and she enjoys hiking, traveling and meeting new people.
top
Brett McKeachnie
Academic Affairs
Spencer Childs
Karen Merrick
Renee Van Buren
Ashley Kaverin-Davis
Development & Alumni
Nicki Gilbert
Executive
Kyle Reyes
Finance & Administration
Melissa Bolt
Laura Carlson
James Hansen
Jo Ann Innes
Ryan Lindstrom
Aaron Nielson
Student Affairs
Ryan Burton
Ruth Ann Haws
Greg Jackson
Eric Madsen
Leialoha Pakalani
Junko Watabe
University Relations
Curtis Puzey
Brett McKeachnie started managing UVU’s email system in 1993 and has spent his career building and maintaining the
institution’s information technology infrastructure. A UVU alumnus, McKeachnie has had a hand in developing many of UVU’s
key technologies, including the campus’s first Web server.
The Presidential Award winner for excellence, McKeachnie was instrumental in the campuswide “Great Migration” from Novell
GroupWise to Exchange and other Microsoft technologies during the 2011-2012 academic year. The UVU IT team leaned
heavily on McKeachnie’s two decades of technical expertise and institutional knowledge when making the landmark leap away
from the institution’s legacy email system — a complex process on an unprecedented scale for UVU.
McKeachnie and his wife of 22 years have six children, and so far, five members of his family have attended UVU. He stays
busy juggling his fulltime IT responsibilities with adjunct teaching at UVU.
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J. Bonner Ritchie
J. Bonner Ritchie is an institution in the field of international organizational behavior and an important figure in the growth of
UVU’s Woodbury School of Business, which is now the largest business school in the Utah System of Higher Education. Prior
to joining UVU in 2001, Ritchie was on the faculty at BYU for 27 years and the faculty at the University of Michigan for six years
before that.
The Presidential Award winner for lifetime service, Ritchie boasts an impressive academic record, personally mediated peace
negotiations between Israel and Palestine and has served as a management consultant to some of the world’s largest
organizations. In 2001, Ritchie came out of retirement to help build UVU’s business school in the run-up to university status.
Many of UVU’s faculty and administrators can trace their academic history through Ritchie’s teachings in leadership, conflict
resolution, organizational philosophy and many other topics.
Ritchie and his wife, Lois, have been married for nearly 30 years and together have four children and eight grandchildren. He
enjoys reading, travel and caring for the hundreds of plants he keeps at home.
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Jonathan Westover
Jonathan Westover is a widely respected expert in the fields of business management and organizational leadership, having
been published in 28 academic publications and given more than 70 scholarly presentations around the world. Westover taught
at BYU and the University of Utah prior to moving into his current roles as an assistant professor of management and director of
academic service learning at UVU.
The Presidential Award winner for engagement, Westover was given a Fulbright Scholar grant to teach MBA students in Minsk,
Belarus. His Fulbright appointment helped UVU receive the Fulbright program’s distinction as a “top producer” in 2011 and
further bolstered the University’s growing connection with the prestigious international scholar program. In addition to his work
with Fulbright, Westover is a regular visiting faculty member at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, China, and is
on the board of directors for the National Association of Academies of Science.
Westover and his wife of 10 years, Jacque, have five children: Sara, Amber, Lia, Kaylie and David.
College of Humanities & Social Sciences
Rob Carney, English & Literature — creative work
Erin Donohoe-Rankin, Philosophy & Humanities —
advising
Grant Richards, Behavioral Science — service
Christine Weigel, Philosophy & Humanities —
scholarly research
College of Science & Health
Alvin Benson, physical science — teaching
Daniel Stephen, earth sciences — service
Steve Wasserbaech, physics — scholarship
College of Technology & Computing
Curtis Welborn, Computer Science — scholarship
Eric Russell, Emergency Services — teaching
Dennis Lisonbee, Digital Media — service
School of the Arts
Jackie Colledge, Dance — teaching
School of Education
Travis Lemon, Master of Education — cooperating
teacher
Ann Sharp, Elementary Education — graduate mentor
University College
Chitralekha Duttagupta, Basic Composition —
scholarship
Forrest Williams, Basic Composition/ESL — service
Woodbury School of Business
Jared Chapman, Management — teaching
Jonathan Westover, Management — scholarship
College of Humanities & Social Sciences
Jolene Arnoff, Office of the Dean
College of Science & Health
Tom Liljegren, Earth Science & Physics
College of Technology & Computing
Vaylene Perry, Computing & Network Science
School of the Arts
Rae Ann Ellis, Academic Advising
School of Education
Eva Sanchez, Advisement Center
University College
J. Waterreus, stCareer & Academic Counseling
Woodbury School of Business
Michelle Escamilla, Legal Studies
Silvia Lobendahn, Management
College of Humanities & Social Sciences
Janet Colvin, Communications
College of Science & Health
Heather Wilson-Ashworth, Biology
College of Technology & Computing
Mike Harper, Digital Media
School of the Arts
Hilary Demske, Music
School of Education
Bryan Waite, Secondary Education
University College
Marcus Jorgensen, Developmental Math
Woodbury School of Business
Harry Taute, Marketing
College of Humanities & Social Sciences
Sheila Bibb, Behavioral Science
College of Science & Health
Maria Groves, Earth Science
College of Technology & Computing
James Jackson, Engineering Graphics & Design
Technology
School of the Arts School of Education University College
Faculty
STAFF
FULL-TIME FACULTY
ADJUNCT FACULTY
Kristen Hawkins, Dance Frank Garrett, Elementary Education Jamie Littlefield, Basic Composition
Woodbury School of Business
Amy Bettridge, Marketing
FULL-TIME STAFF
Brent Anderson, head coach, Women’s Soccer
MeriAnn Boxall, counselor, GEAR UP Project
Steven Crook, director, International Student Services
Kathy Johnson, gift processing, Development &
Alumni
Loretta King, administrative assistant, Theatre Arts
Cristina Pianezzola, director, Planned Giving
Rebecca Rothey, administrative assistant, Concurrent
Enrollment
Ursula Sorensen, associatedirector, Faculty Teaching
Excellence