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The Thunderbird Board of Trustees voted unanimously in 2006 to integrate the oath into the school's application process, curriculum and graduation ceremonies. Since then virtually all students have taken the pledge.

Thunderbird Professional Oath of Honor

Competitors dismissed the Thunderbird Professional Oath of Honor as unnecessary or even insulting when the world's first global business school also became the first to institutionalize a pledge for responsible management in 2006.

Attitudes changed quickly two years later, when corporate leaders consumed with maximizing short-term profits got caught taking shortcuts that triggered a global economic meltdown. Since then many institutions have followed the lead of Thunderbird School of Global Management, adopting pledges of their own that put new emphasis on professional ethics and accountability.

Thunderbird has helped drive the worldwide movement as a founding partner of The Oath Project. Thunderbird's ninth President, Ángel Cabrera, Ph.D., helped organize the project as an original board member, while Thunderbird Professor Gregory Unruh, Ph.D., director of the school's Lincoln Center for Ethics in Global Management, stepped forward as an original Global Advisory Council member. Thunderbird graduate Debra Wheat '10 also got involved early as the project's first director and secretariat.

Since 2006, thousands of students and alumni have signed the Thunderbird Professional Oath of Honor and sworn to follow its principles. The school reinforces the commitment at key points in its application process, classroom instruction and graduation ceremonies.

Unruh said the oath ensures that Thunderbird candidates understand the school's core values from the beginning. He said the oath also helps attract students who already have well-developed ethics. "It is from this base that we can build a strong culture of ethics on campus and as global business professionals operating around the world," Unruh said.

The oath was drafted by the student-run Thunderbird Honor Council after Cabrera challenged the students in 2004 to make Thunderbird the first business school to establish an oath that would guide them through their careers. The Thunderbird Board of Trustees voted unanimously to assimilate the oath into the school's overall educational experience in June 2006.