Phillip C. Stone, president emeritus of Bridgewater College, will headline the college’s Scott Symposium on Business Ethics on March 19.
The symposium will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Cole Hall on the college’s campus and is free and open to the public.
The topic of Stone’s address will be “The Better Angels of Our Nature.”
The Scott Symposium on Business Ethics is named in honor of BC’s former vice president for institutional advancement Charles H. Scott and his father, the late Harvey H. Scott, who served on the College’s Board of Trustees for more than 30 years. The symposium was developed to provide training for Bridgewater College students who are emerging leaders and future participants in the workplace.
The goal of the symposium is to foster and encourage a strong foundation of morals and ethics so students may integrate into a diverse world and face challenges easily.
A native of Virginia and a 1965 graduate of Bridgewater College, Stone attended the University of Chicago Graduate School of Economics and received a law degree from the University of Virginia. After 24 years in private law practice in Virginia, he served as president of Bridgewater College from 1994 until 2010. Upon retirement, he was named president emeritus.
During his law practice, Stone was listed in the first four editions of The Best Lawyers in America. Elected a Fellow in the Virginia Bar Association Foundation, the American Bar Association Foundation and the American College of Trial Lawyers, Stone has also been president of several bar groups, and in 1997 he served as president of the Virginia Bar Association. He chaired the Virginia State Bar Committee on Ethics and the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board.
Stone has served as chairman of the board for Rockingham Memorial Hospital and was a member of the Commonwealth Transportation Board. He has held national leadership positions in his denomination, serving as moderator of the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference, the highest elected office of the denomination.
Active in local historical groups, Stone is a frequent lecturer on Abraham Lincoln and for each of the last 38 years has conducted a ceremony at a local Lincoln family cemetery to commemorate Lincoln’s birthday. In 2004 he founded the Lincoln Society of Virginia, which hosts an annual symposium on Lincoln. He has served as a member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, the Virginia Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and the boards of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation and Mr. Jefferson’s Poplar Forest.
During his tenure as a college president, Stone served as chair of the NCAA Division III Presidents Council as well as chair of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the accrediting agency for 11 southern states. He was chairman of the Council of Independent Colleges of Virginia.
Stone is the recipient of various awards and recognitions including four honorary doctorates. In 1997, he was named Distinguished Virginian by the Virginia Exchange Club; and in 1987 he was named Churchman of the Year by the Religious Heritage Foundation. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Service Award from the Harrisonburg-Rockingham County Historical Society, the Rogers Leadership Award from the Southern Association Commission on Colleges and the first Phillip C. Stone Award for Exemplary Service to the College.
In March, 2010, the general Assembly of Virginia and Rockingham County Board of Supervisors passed resolutions honoring Stone for his contributions to education and the community.
He and his wife, Cherrill – a 1966 graduate of Bridgewater College – have four children, all of whom are graduates of Bridgewater College, and four grandchildren, one of whom, Crystal is a Bridgewater sophomore. Stone and three of his children have formed the Stone Law Group in Harrisonburg, focusing on business law, estate planning, non-profits and educational law.
For further information, call Bridgewater College at (540) 828-5787, or send an email to Sherrie Arey, college events and stewardship coordinator, at [email protected].
Bridgewater College is a private, four-year liberal arts college located in the Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Founded in 1880, it was the state’s first private, coeducational college. Today, Bridgewater College is home to approximately 1,750 undergraduate students.
Share
Contributors
