Pitt Conference to Promote Value of Good Corporate Citizenship

PITTSBURGH—If the business world has learned a lesson from the corporate scandals of Enron, Imclone, and WorldCom it is that good corporate citizenship is critical to sustained success. Corporate officers from Mellon Financial Corporation, Medrad, Inc., and H.J. Heinz Company will share their insights about the challenges and benefits of developing and implementing effective corporate codes of conduct at a by-invitation-only March 25 conference called "Beyond Rhetoric: Highlighting Integrity and Corporate Codes of Conduct." The conference, and follow-up reception, will take place from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Pittsburgh Athletic Association, 4215 Fifth Ave., Oakland.

Hosted by Citizens for Global Solutions Pittsburgh, the University of Pittsburgh's Ford Institute for Human Security, and the University's Center for International Legal Education (CILE), the conference is designed to offer information on the local and global movement toward implementing codes of conduct. Former Pennsylvania Governor and U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh will make introductory remarks. Presenters Michael Bleier, general counsel for Mellon Financial Corporation; John Friel, president and CEO of Medrad; and Jack Radke, director of ethics at H.J. Heinz Company, will then describe the ways in which their organizations created corporate cultures that valued integrity and social responsibility. A question-and-answer session will follow the presentations.

There also will be a media availability at the conclusion of the conference, at which time members of the media will have an opportunity to discuss the issue of corporate citizenship with the conference presenters and academicians Simon F. Reich, Pitt professor of political science and international affairs and director of Pitt's Ford Institute for Human Security, and Burkart Holzner, Pitt's Distinguished Service Professor of International Studies, Emeritus, and professor of sociology and public and international affairs.

The Ford Institute for Human Security was established at Pitt in 2003 as a result of an endowment made to the University by the Ford Motor Company. The mission of the institute is to conduct research that focuses on a series of transnational threats to the human rights of civilian populations. Its purpose is to generate independent research, disseminate policy papers, and advocate nonpartisan policy proposals to both domestic and international policymakers.

The CILE prepares Pitt law students for careers in the international legal arena through first-hand experience of foreign legal systems. The center also coordinates academic programs at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Law with the University Center for International Studies and its affiliated area studies centers and the Global Studies Program.

Citizens for Global Solutions Pittsburgh, formerly the World Federalist Association of Pittsburgh, is a nonpartisan membership organization with a vision for a world in which nations work together to abolish war, protect human rights and freedoms, and solve the problems facing humanity that no one nation can solve alone.

###

3/19/04/tmw