Annual ethics symposium hosts former felon

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David Myers, former World Communication executive, served one year in prison after he was found guilty of $11 billion in accounting fraud in 2005. Now, he will visit Oklahoma Christian University to share his mistakes and how not to make them.

World Communication was a telecommunications company. After a large financial scandal caused the company to file bankruptcy, they were taken over and renamed MCI Communications Corporation.

Myers, who had a hand in the company’s downfall, will give a lecture entitled “The Slippery Slope: Learning from Someone Else’s Mistakes” at the J.J. Millican Ethics Symposium.

“All the people we’ve had before… chose the right path,” Elaine Kelly, associate professor of Accounting said. “David Myers did not.”

Sophomore accounting major Blake Patterson is interested in the unusual perspective Myers could bring to the symposium.

“My first thought is ‘Why would they bring a felon?,’” Patterson said. “But he can talk about what he did and his mistakes and [students] can learn from that.”

Kelly organizes the event every year. The symposium, which began in January 2005, was started for J.J. Millican after his son and daughter-in-law, Don and Donna Millican, established a $1 million endowment in his honor.

“We have brought various speakers to campus through the years, and we really have struggled to make sure our students understand the importance of ethics,” Kelly said. “Jeff Simmons, who is the Dean of the College of Business, and then Shannon Watkins, who is the President of our Ethics Consortium… had heard him at another venue and they said he was very impactful. His story – a little bit of renewal, changing, making a mistake, learning from that, forgiveness, moving forward – was a different message than anything we ever had before.”

Jared Dickson, senior accounting and finance major, said he anticipates the speech to be influential.

“It’s going to open some people’s eyes as to what could really happen,” Dickson said. “Just being able to see what his mistakes were so we don’t make the same mistakes. There [are] a lot of accounting things that have changed because of his specific incident.”

According to Dickson, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a law passed by Congress in 2002 to protect investors from the possibility of fraudulent accounting activities by corporations, was created after the World Comm controversy.

Kelly is a strong advocate for the incorporation of ethics into the Oklahoma Christian business and accounting curriculum in order to benefit students’ careers and the reputation of the university.

“I always tell my students when you graduate and you go to work, your reputation – both good and bad – reflects on OC,” Kelly said. “We want to provide [students] a foundation while [they’re] here. … We have several courses that are business ethics and accounting ethics that students take, so we feel that it is very important.”

Graydon Lidia, sophomore accounting major, said he learns about ethics regularly in his accounting courses.

“It’s come up at least every class period I’d say,” Lidia said. “It’s been a big topic. For instance, every Friday we have an ethics dilemma… That’s just one of the ways that we deal with ethics in business.”

Sophomore Lauren Ashpole said her professors in the Business department acknowledge the potential mistakes accountants and business people may make and teach them how to avoid and recover from those mishaps.

“I know my accounting teacher has told us situations where if you mess up and somehow you do end up with [a client’s] money what you’re supposed to do,” Ashpole said. “I feel like they’ve really prepared us for faults in the future.”

Dickson said ethics and morality are prominent issues in the accounting profession, making the emphasis on ethics at Oklahoma Christian valuable to graduates as they enter the workforce.

“I think it is very valuable information,” Dickson said. “Every course that I’ve taken has an aspect of ethics because it’s a problem in the accounting profession. If you don’t have integrity your degree doesn’t mean anything.”

As he prepares for his career after graduation, Dickson said he expects Myers’s lecture to boost his insight into the real ethical dilemmas of accounting.

“Getting to hear from someone that was in such a prevalent position, it’s such a big piece of history,” Dickson said. “And, getting to hear exactly what his mindset was going into the mistakes that he made – just knowing that, since I am an Accounting major, it’s where I’m going to be and I don’t want to make the same mistakes.”

The symposium is on Oct. 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Judd Theatre. Certified Public Accountants may earn one hour of CPE credit for attending. To register for the event or find out more information, visit here.

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