A lively exploration of business ethics in the post-Enron scandal era will take place at DePaul University Feb. 22 when a panel of area business executives and legal and academic experts gather to discuss “When Principles Conflict with Corporate Culture.”

The free, public event, sponsored by DePaul’s Institute for Business & Professional Ethics (IBPE), will be held from 12:20 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Room 904 of DePaul’s Lewis Center, 25 E. Jackson Blvd., Chicago.

Hosted by nationally recognized ethics expert Patricia Werhane, the Wicklander Chair of Business Ethics and IBPE director, the panel will feature: Donald Hermann, professor of law and philosophy at DePaul’s College of Law; Sujata Dayal, division ethics and compliance officer for Abbott Laboratories; Jo Jackson, chief financial officer of Integrated Project Management, a business consulting firm that won the 2005 Better Business Bureau’s Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics; and Michael Flynn, principal of the executive career coaching firm Michael Flynn & Associates and founding executive director of Georgetown University’s Woodstock Center for Ethics and Values.

Founded in 1985 at DePaul’s College of Commerce, the IBPE is guided by a 26-member board drawn from Chicago’s corporate community. The institute fosters educational programs, public forums and research that explore and promote ethical practices in organizations. It sponsors ethics-related public programs throughout the year and every third year hosts a conference on ethics teaching and training with DePaul, St. John’s and Niagara universities.

Board members and faculty associated with the institute promote the exploration of ethics in DePaul’s academic programs and serve as resources to the corporate community on business ethics issues.

Each year, the center appoints one or two DePaul faculty members to posts as Wicklander Fellows to study ethical issues in their respective disciplines. Research sponsored by the center includes the development of case studies on ethics issues relevant to the corporate community.

For more information about the IBPE or its programs, call 312/362-8786 or visit its Web site: http://commerce.depaul.edu/ethics/ .