This year's crop of MBA students at the University of California, Davis, discovered something new waiting for them on their first day of school -- boot camp.

Unlike what you might expect from the military, last week's boot camp was designed to exercise the ethical muscles of the 150 entering students.

Established by the Graduate School of Management's new dean, Nicole Woolsey Biggart, the mandatory program comes at a time when too many segments of corporate America have had major ethical failings and eroded public trust.

Perhaps the most glaring example is the ongoing scandal at Enron Corp., the one-time Wall Street wonder that filed for bankruptcy protection after accounting tricks were used to inflate profits. The ethical firestorm in this case also engulfed the legal profession and investment banks.

More recently, the New York Stock Exchange was caught up in a crisis of its own making when CEO Dick Grasso was forced to resign over a payout that approached $140 million.

Bay Area consultant John Reynolds wasted no time in putting the students through their paces at the three-hour ethics camp. Right out of the box, they were asked to play the roles of CEOs who come across an injured hiker while on a mountain climb.

Do they leave him to fend for himself, or do they give the hiker immediate first-aid and leave him in the village to continue their climb to reach their personal goal? If they stay behind, at what point does their responsibility to the injured hiker end? Do they leave him at the village, or when he's in the care of doctors at the hospital, or once he returns home?

In taking up the case, the MBA students questioned how decisions would be made in a group of chief executives, Reynolds says. Would they seek consensus or allow one of their number to act as an unguided missile pursuing his or her own agenda?

So, how did the lesson go over?

"I found it to be a pretty good start by challenging the students to learn to question how you would handle different ethical situations," says Ryan Weaver, a software design engineer with Hewlett-Packard Co. in Roseville.

He will be taking courses in the MBA Program for Working Professionals at night for the next three years while he continues to work at HP during the day.

Weaver, 26, wants to add a master's in business administration to his résumé to learn more about the business and strategy side of an organization.

"I want to better understand corporate structure and philosophies and to be able to comprehend the financials," Weaver says.

In short, he wants to take his technical background and succeed in the technology business.

"What was a real eye-opener was that the boot camp helped us realize the scope of ethical problems," Weaver says.

Much of the discussion turned on whether the CEO group's goals and, ultimately its survival, would be sacrificed if one of their number stopped to help the injured hiker.

The exercise, he says, serves to illustrate the complexities and implication of not having shared values and a framework to implement those values and ethics.

Weaver, who admits that he hasn't had much business experience yet, says he tends to see things more black-and-white. But more often, he says, the issues fall into a vast gray area, and the answers depend on your perspective.

Dean Woolsey Biggart says the boot camp will help prepare the master's of business administration students for the teaching of ethics throughout the management school's curriculum -- from truth in advertising to privacy issues in information systems.

The dean is quick to point out that while the school has been talking about ethics for years, this boot camp gave the students the tools to deal with it early.

"Symbolically," she says, "this boot camp lets the students know that ethics is important, just as accounting or marketing is important.

"We want our students to be as prepared as possible. We want to help develop their moral consciousness to help them make good and informed decisions."

Reynolds, a managing partner for Marin's InterVox Group, says the camp shows students how ineffectual leaders become when they lack an ethical compass. A Stanford MBA graduate, Reynolds walked away from a job in the late 1980s when he unsuccessfully challenged a senior executive over insider trading.

"Ethics is values in practice," Reynolds says. "The camp brings more meaning to the students who get a chance to wrestle in the real world."

Realistically, though, you can't expect to see a permanent shift in ethical thinking in three hours. "The objective," Reynolds says "is to teach the students to spot, analyze and respond to critical challenges confronting them in a global economy."

A second component, he says, is to provide the tools and framework for the future executives to reach an ethical decision when the right outcome isn't given.

"And, finally, I'm hoping the ethics course will help plant the seeds of learning that can be watered by the faculty throughout the curriculum," Reynolds says.

Dean Woolsey Biggart points out that some students enter the program thinking they have well-developed ethical visions and standards.

"Yet through the discussion process, they will find some very different answers to dealing with the same issue," she says.

"Different backgrounds see issues in very different ways. They may take a group-oriented approach if they are from Asia and an individual approach if from Europe or the U.S."

Woolsey Biggart notes that all of the incoming MBA students have had work experience, "but they might not have dealt directly with these issues. As they move forward with their careers, these issues will land on their desks more frequently.

"Business is growing increasingly complex. Students who are well-meaning and honest need guidance in navigating what can be ethically complex situations."

The actions of business leaders have far-reaching implications because of technology and the global economy, he says, and students must recognize ethical challenges and arm themselves with guidelines to arrive at the right decision.

As Reynolds aptly puts it in a news release about the program: "I want students to learn to think critically about ethical issues, to have the tools at hand to resolve those issues, and to find the moral courage to act."

If they learn those lessons, trust in their part of corporate America will take a giant leap forward.