Michael Stauffer

Beginning in 1996, initially as an adjunct and, since 2014 as a full-time tenured faculty member, Michael Kirk Stauffer lectures in business ethics, corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability at the Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College of The City University of New York.  He has also taught business ethics as an adjunct lecturer in the graduate division of Touro College.

He retired from Verizon in November 2003 as Director - Corporate Social Responsibility, having planned Verizon’s comprehensive corporate responsibility and community affairs strategies. He also developed and coordinated the nation-wide Verizon Consumer Advisory Board (VzCAB.) During thirteen years in the telecommunications industry, Mr. Stauffer developed and managed a series of stakeholder/company dialogues designed to examine the public benefits of advanced telecommunications technologies. He was project manager of the New York State Telephone Association’s 1990 - 1992 opinion-leader task force which produced the report, TOMORROW’S INFORMATION HIGHWAYS: A TELECOMMUNICATIONS-BASED DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY FOR NEW YORK STATE.  The report challenged New York’s public and private sector leadership to endorse universal access to an upgraded public switched telephone network (now known as the INTERNET) as the best means of stimulating the State’s economy, and improving delivery of needed services in health care, education and other areas.

Beginning in 1992, Mr. Stauffer planned and managed the consumer advisory boards of the former New York Telephone, NYNEX, Bell Atlantic and the current Verizon.  Composed of opinion leaders from a broad array of stakeholder groups, the VzCAB enables Verizon to maintain an on-going dialogue with its constituencies on issues of mutual concern and helps Verizon identify and respond to emerging trends and issues affecting the company and its customers.

Previously, Mr. Stauffer served for ten years as an Issues Manager and Public Affairs Director for Citibank.  As an Assistant Vice President and head of Citibank’s External Issues Unit, he developed a public issues tracking model that identified emerging social and political trends impacting financial industry business decisions. As an International Public Affairs Officer, Mr. Stauffer was a liaison between Citibank and the Sullivan Signatories Organization in which Citibank played a leading role. The Sullivan Principles governed Citibank’s engagement with South Africa during the Apartheid era. He organized the Citibank Board meeting that took the decision to disinvest from South Africa after the Reverend Leon Sullivan ended his involvement with South Africa because of the regime’s continuing failure to meet its commitments to dismantle the Apartheid system. He participated for several years in an on-going issues management seminar at Pennsylvania State University resulting, in 1984, in his presentation of the Citicorp issues management model at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management.  Mr. Stauffer was, for five years, Vice President of the Forum for Corporate Responsibility, Inc., a church-related not-for-profit group that examines issues affecting business and society.  For FCR, he designed and negotiated funding for a series of seminars in business ethics for middle managers.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Stauffer was a university counselor, a college and prep school history teacher, a vocational counselor, and a grants writer. He qualified, by examination, for certification as a professional member of the National Rehabilitation Counseling Association.

Trained in European and American history and political theory (M.A./ABD), Mr. Stauffer completed his doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota. At the U of M, he was actively involved in Senator McCarthy’s 1968 presidential campaign. He received a B.A. in History from the State University of New York, College at Fredonia, which he attended after winning a New York State Regent’s College Scholarship. At Fredonia, Mr. Stauffer was active in student affairs, serving as President of the Student Government Association.