We devote a significant amount of time in the program to the topics of ethics and culture, equipping our students to make a positive impact on corporate behavior. St. Thomas has a long history of shaping businesses in this way through the work of its Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions, Center for Ethical Business Cultures and the Veritas Institute, which are known nationwide for their research and programming on ethics and professionalism.

The goal of the Organizational Ethics and Compliance Program is to build on this tradition by providing the university’s hallmark “whole student” approach to better position ethics and compliance professionals to shape corporate practices and priorities well into the future. 

Our ethics and compliance programs are accredited by AACSB International. Our LL.M. program is one of just two LL.M. programs in the U.S.with this accreditation, and the only one in the compliance and ethics discipline. 

Relying on input and expertise from business leaders, we designed our programs to develop ethics and compliance professionals to work in a variety of industries, from banking to health care to manufacturing and more. Many compliance programs focus on just one area.

Our faculty includes professionals currently working in the ethics and compliance field, as well as professors from the School of Law and Opus College of Business. Their institutional and academic knowledge provides a solid foundation for any student – whether you are new to the field or a mid-level career-changer.

In the June 2016 issue of Compliance Week, Professor Christopher Michaelson was named a 2016 Top Mind in the industry.

In the May 2019 issue of Compliance Week, program Director Colleen Dorsey was named a 2019 Top Mind in the industry.

The Compliance Externship Program provides students with the opportunity to work side-by-side with corporate ethics and compliance professionals to increase working knowledge of the field. Our students have been placed with Delta, Ecolab, Medtronic, Piper Jaffray, TCF, Donaldson, Toro, Thomson Reuters and the city of St. Paul, to name just a few. The commitment of the professional community to enriching the education of our students is solid proof of the difference that such a program can make to the corporate community at large.