Each year, an international expert in this field is welcomed to the College community for others to learn from, be inspired by, and to promote an ethical approach to business activity and decision-making.
Trinity is delighted to announce that the 2014-2015 Gourlay Professor will be Dr Rosamund Thomas, Director of the Centre for Business and Public Sector Ethics, Cambridge University. The Centre celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2013, and in addition to research work, consults to both business and to government (having advised the Cadbury Committee, the House of Lords, and the US Ethics Reform Committee, for example, and been a collaborator on the Ethics for UK Universities initiative). Established in 1988 at a time when Cambridge did not yet have a Business School, the Centre, the first in Europe, was thus established as a separate legal entity, pioneering business, government and environmental ethics before such subjects were to become mainstream.
A Fulbright scholar, educated at the Sorbonne, Harvard, Birmingham, Southampton, and Cambridge, Dr Thomas held the Margaret S Morriss International Fellowship at the JF Kennedy School of Government in conjunction with the Harvard Schools of Law and Business, was a lecturer in public administration at LSE, a fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge and a senior member of Robison College (as well as being a life-member of the University), and has been a Senior Research Fellow and Member of the Faculty of Law at Cambridge. Dr Thomas has published and presented globally on human rights and business, corruption, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance, development administration and social policy; her publication Teaching Ethics won Foreign Book of the Year Award from the US government. Dr Thomas has separate higher degree qualifications in Social Administration and Social Policy and Development Administration and Policy in respect of Third World countries.
Dr Thomas received the title of Woman of the Year in 2005 from the American Biographical Institute, honoring her overall accomplishments and contributions to society.
This annual appointment at Trinity College, University of Melbourne is funded by a gift from the late John Gourlay and Louise Gourlay, OAM. Dr Thomas is the 8th Gourlay Professor.
