“Meet 220” is a series of posts featuring staff of the Smeal Professional Graduate Programs. “220” refers to the suite of offices within the Business Building where the team is housed.
Michelle Darnell, Director of Honor & Integrity, Management & Organizations, Smeal College of Business
What’s your role with the Smeal College community?
I hold two positions at Smeal: Director of Honor & Integrity, and Associate Clinical Professor in the Management & Organization department. I love that I get to strike a balance between these roles every day. In my classes, I strive to help others develop various skills related to ethical leadership in an organizational context. In my administrative role, I get to ‘practice what I preach (teach)’ by supporting the Smeal community in our shared commitments to an ethical culture. With specific consideration of PGP, I strive to be a resource that compliments the formal elements of the various programs:
- classes, student organizations, professional development opportunities, processes, and procedures…
- to strengthen awareness of, engagement with, and advocacy for ethical practices at Smeal and in the organizations, our graduates eventually enter.
What did you do prior to coming to Smeal?
I’ve been at Smeal for almost 1 year, and just prior to that I was a faculty member and business ethics center director at the University of Florida. Before that, I actually was a philosophy professor at two different universities in North Carolina.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
I am passionate about the topic of my work and find my work meaningful. Every now and then, a student tells me how practical my class was for them (this always surprises me – ethics is usually thought of as being very abstract in nature, so I find the greatest compliment I can get in teaching is about how ‘useful’ the course was), or I overhear a conversation organically developing around a topic I’ve helped to introduce, or someone will come to me to talk through an ethical problem they are facing at Smeal… these are all subtle ways that make me feel I am doing something to help people. Perhaps it is not surprising, though (since ethics and social responsibility are primarily about relationships), I really enjoy working alongside people who are passionate and talented in their own ways.
What’s the most interesting thing about you that we wouldn’t learn from your resume/classroom alone?
I find the question of ‘tell me something interesting about you’ to be really daunting. What would other people find interesting? I think it is interesting that I took surfing lessons as an official class in college (I passed), but does anyone else? And does this question really amount to ‘what is something about you that would surprise others’? I’m surprised by the fact that somehow I’m old enough to be celebrating my 20th wedding anniversary this year, but perhaps everyone else is thinking it was obvious I am that old? Hmmm… perhaps what is interesting about me is that I can turn what was intended as a simple, straightforward question into something incredibly complicated. Or is that not interesting, but annoying?
If you could trade places with any other person for a week, famous or not, living or dead, real or fictional, with whom would it be and why?
My first reaction to this question was to analyze what would be entailed in trading places, who would be affected by this trade and how they would be affected, my abilities to uphold responsibilities I’ve been assigned…. That ultimately led me to conclude that I don’t want to trade places with anyone. However, that response seems to miss the point of the question, so I’ll simplify. I would trade places with any person who gets to spend the week comfortably lounging on a warm, tropical beach. Why? Because then I would get to comfortably lounge on a warm tropical beach.