Twenty-five students from New Ulm High School were selected by our principal, Mr. Bergmann, and head secretary Erin Jensen, along with other students from surrounding schools, to spend a day at New Ulm Country Club on Oct. 14, offering an opportunity to learn about ethics and morality through various activities.
On Wednesday, Sept. 24, students gathered in the auditorium to learn about what the Rotary Ethics Workshop is and why they were selected to participate on Oct. 14.
“You got picked because we believe you have that level of leadership and ethics. That’s why you got picked,” Bergmann said. “So many students have leadership skills or have potential for leadership skills.”
On Tuesday, Oct. 14, these students got up to catch a bus at 7:30 a.m. to the New Ulm Country Club, where they were served breakfast before the activities began. Three guest speakers apart of the Rotary club spoke with breaks and snacks between before lunch.
After lunch, students were broken up into seven groups and given a simulation scenario about a company needing to figure out how to lower their costs. They were divided within the groups into company roles with instructions and information to figure out how they, as that company, would figure that problem out. Within an hour, all groups had their ideas, and the group leaders/”CEO’s” all went up one by one to discuss with everyone how their group would solve their company’s problem, while the rest were able to ask questions for each leader to answer at the end.
& Savannah Sweely from MVL
talking to the rest of the students about a simulation scenario as the CEO & Public/Government Relations VP of the scenario company.
(Vanessa Hauser)
“It was fun and I like to boss people around,” said Abigail Sowers, who was one of the leaders. “It was a great opportunity to do something new.”
She also had the CEO role in the scenario. “I learned how to have good morals and that ethics are important.”
Duane Laffrezen, the Vice President of Citizens Bank Minnesota and a 25-year-plus Rotarian, said, “So the ethics workshops been put on for about 10 years plus, and it’s for high school juniors and seniors from our local schools here in New Ulm. And the intent of the program is to provide an avenue for students to understand what is ethical, what’s morally responsible, and how that is defined through different systems and processes that we all do every day.”
“I think ethics is a very current and relevant topic right now, today. Ethics comes from many different sources and can be influenced by many different avenues of interests and desires, and personal reflections and outside influences that we all take in every day,” Laffrezen said.
