Core Commitments: Educating Students for
Personal and Social Responsibility
Leadership Consortium Members
Twenty-three institutions from across all sectors of higher education comprise the Core Commitments Leadership Consortium, which is designed to bring together the most promising institutional practices related to educating students for personal and social responsibility as well as to deepen and extend these efforts.
Leadershipship Consortium Members: Institution Type
Allegheny College, Pennsylvania
Babson College, Massachusetts
Bowling Green State University, Ohio
California State University, Northridge, California
Concordia College – Moorhead, Minnesota
Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania
Miami University, Ohio
Michigan State University, Michigan
Middlesex Community College, Massachusetts
Oakland Community College, Michigan
Portland State University, Oregon
Rollins College, Florida
Sacred Heart University, Connecticut
Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire
Saint Mary’s College of California, California
St. Lawrence University, New York
United States Air Force Academy, Colorado
United States Military Academy, New York
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama
University of Central Florida, Florida
University of the Pacific, California
Wagner College, New York
Winthrop University, South Carolina
Allegheny College
Meadville, Pennsylvania
Affiliation: Independent
Carnegie Classification: Baccalaureate Liberal Arts
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 2,068
Overview
Evidenced by the mission statement and the current strategic plan, Allegheny College promotes many of the Core Commitments dimensions described by AAC&U. Through a culture of cooperation, Allegheny offers a variety of programs and innovative centers that support its vision of undergraduate learning rooted in academic rigor, civic engagement, and the development of integrity. For over a decade, core groups of faculty, administrators, students, and community members have been working with dedication and persistence to teach civic responsibility and personal integrity.
Goals
Though Allegheny’s efforts demonstrate a solid institutional commitment to all five dimensions of the Core Commitments, additional work is needed to create a seamless connection between those values and existing programs. We will utilize small group dialogues to identify opportunities for expanding, enhancing, and integrating Core Commitment initiatives on campus and with our community partners. Five Civic Engagement Student Fellows will collaborate with the project team to engage their peers in examining the dynamics of personal and social integrity and responsible citizenship. In the end we hope to have developed the necessary structures to coordinate and integrate the existing civic engagement and service learning initiatives into a shared vision for personal and social responsibility.
Civic Engagement at Allegheny College: Core Committments
Babson College
Babson Park, Massachusetts
Affiliation: Independent
Carnegie Classification: Business
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 1800, Master’s: 1200
Overview
Babson College makes the ethical, civic, and moral development of its students an integral part of its strategy, vision, and articulated learning goals. Past and current efforts focus on fostering a campus climate that embraces these principles. Babson integrated key dimensions of the Core Commitments initiative into the curriculum, thus impacting every student on campus. Students receive exposure to ethical issues and the role of business in society in a first year seminar, the arts and humanities foundation, and in several other parts of the curriculum and co-curriculum.
Goals
Future efforts include developing programs and improving processes on campus as well as organizing a student forum for all of the Leadership Consortium members. Babson College is also engaged in several high-profile activities to help educate students for personal and social responsibility: a partnership with the Posse Foundation, work with national experts on developing an honor code, the Bernon Center for Public Service, a grant from the Greene Foundation to integrate ethics into business, and development of a center for social entrepreneurship.
Babson College Newsroom: Core Commitments
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Doctoral/Research Intensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 16,925, Master’s: 1,871, Doctoral: 608
Overview
Building on foundations laid more than ten years ago, Bowling Green State University remains committed to its vision of educating students to make thoughtful judgments about moral and ethical issues, engage in the community, and become responsible citizens. Our efforts revolve around our values initiative, the “BGeXperience,” and our engagement initiative which focuses on community involvement and service learning. Established in 2002, the “BGeXperience” introduces all first year students to critical thinking about values through focused academic experiences.
Goals
Participation in Core Commitments will allow the University to expand the "BGeXperience”, which encourages students to reflect on personal values, to understand those of others, and teaches how to negotiate the value conflicts they may confront as citizens and professionals. Combining their investigation of values with participation in community projects helps students put training into practice. The “BGeXperience” has fostered collaboration among faculty, student affairs staff, students, and many other members of our community. Our Core Commitments project aims at further integrating these programs into curricula and co-curricular activities, cultivating cooperation between students and academic affairs, and creating new courses and learning opportunities.
California State University, Northridge
Northridge, California
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Master’s 1–Comprehensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 26,854, Master’s: 6,389
Overview
California State University, Northridge (CSUN) has a significant track record in promoting the personal and social responsibility of its 35,000 students. Because so many of these efforts exist in isolated pockets, CSUN will bridge the gaps by creating and strengthening cross-divisional relationships; developing a common language for communicating the shared values; and building an infrastructure for organizing programs that span academic departments, administrative units, and student affairs. There are at least three significant barriers to developing a sense of campus or local community among CSUN’s students and staff. First, with nearly 150 languages represented, the student body is extraordinarily culturally diverse; preparing these students for university-level-work is a challenge. Another challenge for Core Commitment goals is the financial and schedule pressures of students. With nearly 70% receiving financial aid, many students are occupied with part or full-time jobs outside of their studies. As a commuter campus, it is equally difficult to reach a large student body that is often coming and going. Lastly, many of the CSUN’s students come from violence-torn neighborhoods that have fostered ethics centered on self-preservation. While CSUN believes that students can develop personal and social responsibility in ways that are compatible with their environment, it will be a challenge to provide students with the tools to integrate a sense of respect and attachment to their communities.
Goals
In light of these challenges, CSUN will launch several programs to integrate curriculum with personal financial and civic responsibility in the Los Angeles community. A writing team has assembled materials to prompt students to grapple with the complexities of debt. Several of these prompts also dovetail with this year’s Freshman Common Reading selection, Nickel and Dimed, by Freshman Convocation speaker Barbara Ehrenreich. To address the needs of its economically at-risk students, CSUN is compiling a faculty hand-reference guide of information on relevant campus policies and resources. Speculatively, CSUN will work with Financial Aid and other departments to integrate literature on college financing, online loan workshops, and debt management counseling. CSUN is also exploring partnering with the Living Learning Communities programs to bring the discussion of personal responsibility and debt to parts of residential life. The inclusion of the Director of the Center for Innovative and Engaged Learning Opportunities and the development of a guide to economic hardship service opportunities will facilitate linking the focus of personal responsibility and debt in the writing classrooms with community and civic programs. Partnership with the DIG LA program will help organize service trips involving areas devastated by the economic crisis. Lastly, the team has assembled materials to help students understand the personal relevance of elections and to internalize their civic responsibilities to participate and vote.
Concordia College – Moorhead
Moorhead, Minnesota
Affiliation: Religious (ELCA Lutheran)
Carnegie Classification: Baccalaureate Liberal Arts
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 2,725, Master’s: 20
Overview
Participation in the Core Commitments Leadership Consortium comes at an opportune time in Concordia College’s history. In 2007, Concordia adopted a new core curriculum for the first time in thirty years. Far more than a mere variation in the sequence of required core courses, it is a new approach to the nature of the liberal arts and Concordia’s obligation to the intellectual and moral development of its students. The theme of the new core, Responsible Engagement in the World, illustrates the strong connection between Concordia’s vision and AAC&U’s five dimensions of personal and social responsibility.
Goals
Concordia's aim is to successfully bridge the gap between vision and practice. To address this challenge, a broad-based task force will be created to monitor and evaluate the implementation and assessment of the new core. Secondly, academic and student affairs will collaborate by expanding the LeadNow program which promotes student leadership and service while fostering intercultural awareness. Finally, Concordia will strengthen its efforts to holistically teach and mentor students by intentionally addressing transitional issues, coordinating student service efforts, and initiating campus-wide discussions about student learning and student life issues.
Elizabethtown College
Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania
Affiliation: Independent
Carnegie Classification: Baccalaureate General
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 1,974, Master’s: 17
Overview
Molded by the mission of “Educate for Service,” Elizabethtown College, a small comprehensive college in Pennsylvania, emphasizes relationship-centered and experiential learning as well as international and cross-cultural understanding. The Strategic Vision of the college, developed throughout two years of planning, calls for renewed efforts to prepare students for lives of purpose as citizens, leaders, and professionals.
Goals
The Core Commitments initiative will facilitate the implementation of the Strategic Vision, especially in the section identified as “Purposeful Life Work.” As participants in the Core Commitments project, we are constructing a first-year program that emphasizes the development of personal and social responsibility. We hold campus-wide dialogues and promote programs with the goal of creating a universal campus commitment to deepen personal and social responsibility and develop institutional goals. We are also exploring the creation of an electronic portfolio requirement which could include entries and artifacts reflecting moral reasoning, self-discovery, relationships, service, leadership, intellectual growth, and future plans.
Miami University – Ohio
Oxford, Ohio
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Doctoral Intensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 14,643, Master’s & Doctoral: 1,695
Overview
Miami University is committed to instilling academic integrity in its students. In 2005, the administration formed a committee to assess and improve the current state of academic integrity at Miami University. After participating in a national survey, conducting focus groups, and reviewing scholarly literature, the committee recommended strengthening the ways in which the university communicates its expectations of academic integrity.
Goals
As part of the Core Commitments initiative, Miami University is developing an online learning module focusing on academic integrity and ethical use of intellectual property. Satisfactory participation in this module will be required for all first-year students. This project, Be Miami: An Infrastructure for Cultivating a Responsible and Intellectual College Life, will enhance the university’s ability to foster the practice of integrity in the personal and academic lives of students.
First in 2009 Academic Integrity Subcommittee: Final Report
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Doctoral/Research Extensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 35,821, Master’s & Doctoral: 9214
Overview
Michigan State University (MSU) is committed to fostering responsible citizenship among its faculty and students. Evidence of the depth and success of this commitment can be found in the many outreach, service-learning, and civic programs in which MSU faculty and students participate. MSU was also recently identified by the new Carnegie Classification system as an “engaged university.” Through the Core Commitments project, Michigan State University will explore new ways to further commit to deepening its understanding of ways to promote personal and social responsibility in students and the institution.
Goals
A collaborative campus dialogue based on the historic Chautauqua Institution will become the model for building a culture of responsibility within the residential programs and eventually the larger university community. These dialogues among faculty, students, staff, and guests will focus on issues such as environmental change, the political process, social justice, war and peace, and artistic freedom of expression. The first goal is to explore personal, social, and institutional responsibility in these issues. The second goal is to develop courses that address the larger subject of responsibility. Possible areas of implementation include new service learning, field experience, internship, civic engagement, and study abroad or away programs that are cross-listed and team taught by faculty from the three residential college programs. This work will include a trans-college capstone course which will mix students from different programs to study the multi-dimensionality of professional and civic responsibility. It will be first piloted as a seminar and then gradually extended to students outside the three degree-granting residential colleges.
Middlesex Community College
Bedford, Massachusetts
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Associate Only
Enrollment: 8,008
Overview
Middlesex Community College (MCC) is one of the largest community colleges in Massachusetts.MCC’s commitment to develop personal and social responsibility is reflected in it mission: to provide educational programs and services that support personal growth and economic opportunity for its diverse student population. As both an effective learning strategy and a community development instrument, MCC’s service learning program, Contributing to a Larger Community, involves more than 600 students each year. Initiatives to promote student global awareness are facilitated by cooperation between the offices of Student Affairs and Academic Affairs. These initiatives include: One World Series, Civility Day and Seven Dialogues, International Fellowships, and the Islamic Studies Institute. Lastly, through MCC’s Intensive Values course requirements and redefined learning outcome goals, students develop ethical and moral reasoning.
Goals
MiThrough participation in the Core Commitments program, MCC will establish a leadership team to foster a national dialogue to share and improve existing initiatives. Middlesex Community College will pilot two integrated learning communities to study personal and social responsibility from a thematic perspective. The envisioned institutional-level change will include creating a campus climate that is supportive and respectful of diversity. This will be fostered by holding regularly scheduled open dialogues across the college community and implementing a program that recognizes faculty, staff and students who demonstrate social and personal responsibility.
Middlesex: Core Commitment
Oakland Community College
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Associate Only
Enrollment: 46,579
Overview
Serving nearly 47,000 students on five campuses, Oakland Community College is the largest community college in Michigan and the eighth largest in the country. Since one-third of U.S. automotive manufacturing occurs within 70 miles of the county, the college is uniquely positioned to observe the effects of outsourcing and globalization. To accommodate the community’s needs, OCC’s Workforce Development unit has established several programs to provide job skills training to disadvantaged or displaced populations. The health and technology departments have also established clinics and public health education initiatives. Facing the region’s increasing economic uncertainty and hardships, Oakland see these challenges as opportunities to realize its vision of an ethical, responsible citizenry.
Goals
Using the existing programs as a base, Oakland Community College will expand and nurture a culture of personal and social responsibility. Oakland will first build a consensus among the faculty to define the nature and applicability of civil responsibility within the existing curriculum. To refine the assessment instruments for these goals, Oakland will revise and improve our existing rubric for personal and social responsibility (pdf). These results, coupled with the input from other consortium members will facilitate identification and improvement of Oakland’s current initiatives.
Portland State University
Portland, Oregon
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Doctoral/Research Extensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 18,000, Master’s: 4,050, Doctoral: 542
Overview
The motto of Portland State University (PSU) is “Let Knowledge Serve the City.” As this motto implies, personal and social responsibility are at the core of the institution’s values. PSU is nationally recognized as a leader in general education reform, community-based learning, and civic engagement. The university’s investments in curricular and institutional reform are paying off, yet there are still improvements to be made, especially in the junior year. Additionally, nascent efforts to more fully integrate student affairs professionals into the academic fabric of the institution remain on the margins of core university activities.
Goals
Through collaboration with AAC&U, the university will target deficiencies at the junior level of the general education program and cultivate new relationships between faculty and student affairs professionals. Expansion of the Academic Innovation Mini-Grant (AIM), a faculty/staff learning community model for professional development, will explicitly address the five AAC&U goals for student personal and social responsibility. PSU’s initiative will strategically pair faculty with student affairs professionals to enhance the personal and social responsibility learning outcomes in the junior level general education program.
Portland State University Center for Academic Excellence
Rollins College
Winter Park, Florida
Affiliation: Independent
Carnegie Classification: Master’s 1–Comprehensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 2,744, Master’s: 734
Overview
Since its groundbreaking 1931 curriculum conference chaired by John Dewey, Rollins College has been committed to cultivating good citizens within a practical liberal education. As part of its recent reaccreditation, the college adopted an ambitious plan to foster leadership, citizenship, integrity, and diversity. Reflected in Rollin’s quality enhancement plan (QEP) and mission, “educating for global citizenship and responsible leadership,” Rollins College is deeply committed to the Core Curriculum goals. In addition to having a successful community engagement program and a “values and decision-making” required course for over twenty-five years, Rollins College wants to expand the effectiveness and scope of its mission.
Goals
Rollins College is committed to creating a seamless, intentional program to promote its mission of educating for global citizenship and responsible leadership. To incorporate the Citizenship Program into the curriculum revision, Rollins is pursuing several avenues. In drafting the new Social Honor Code, Rollins will clearly identify the positive traits expected of students. The establishment of a new Cultural Explorations program will entail a graduation requirement challenging students to develop a sense of community responsibility. The Purposeful Life program is looking to extend guidance beyond the first year to encourage upperclassmen to define the important values and articulate their life goals. To make ethical decision-making more tangible, Rollins will also couple service learning experiences with required “Values” courses. As with many campuses, the focus of Greek organizations can sometimes drift away from service learning and engage in high risk activities. Rollins will provide a full-time director to provide leadership for the incorporation of Greek initiatives with a campus climate of personal responsibility. To facilitate these programs Rollins will encourage personnel “sharing” by placing the Office of Community Engagement, which will report to Academic Affairs, physically in the office of Student Affairs.
Sacred Heart University
Fairfield, Connecticut
Affiliation: Religious
Carnegie Classification: Master’s 2–Comprehensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 4,190, Master’s: 1,585
Overview
Sacred Heart University is a co-educational, comprehensive liberal arts institution which is rooted in the Catholic intellectual tradition. Founded in 1963, Sacred Heart University was the first in America to be led by lay people and is the second largest Catholic university in New England. Since 1988, the university has worked steadily to educate men and women while instilling faith, compassion, social and ethical responsibility, and global awareness. This vision for undergraduate learning is imprinted in the university’s mission statement and expressed in the newly designed core curriculum, Common Core: The Human Journey, which weaves liberal learning with values and ethics. It is also part of the Student Life Freshman Mentor program, which works to “ensure that the learning process at Sacred Heart University extends outside of the classroom.”
Goals
Through Core Commitments, Sacred Heart University extends its vision for undergraduate learning by developing and implementing a university infrastructure and culture that would connect the core curriculum, most particularly its Common Core, and student life more broadly. Beginning with the freshmen mentor program, the five dimensions of personal and social responsibility will be integrated into the curriculum and co-curriculum across the university.
Saint Anselm College
Manchester, New Hampshire
Affiliation: Religious
Carnegie Classification: Baccalaureate Liberal Arts
Enrollment: 1,945
Overview
Saint Anselm College’s campus-wide initiative, Learning Liberty, began in the fall of 2003. It was conceived as a response to two concerns facing higher education: A political and moral concern for the education of engaged citizens and an intellectual and spiritual concern for developing the curiosity and understanding that constitute liberty of the mind. The Learning Liberty initiative has addressed these concerns with three approaches: Curriculum and Pedagogy, Campus Life and Engagement, and Student Voice. This initiative reinvigorates Saint Anselm’s traditional mission as a Catholic liberal arts college in the Benedictine tradition.
Goals
Participation in Core Commitments in the area of Curriculum and Pedagogy included a week-long, interdisciplinary faculty seminar in the fall of 2007 which consisted of discussions on curricular changes as well as presentations on education, liberty, and civic life. Goals for Campus Life and Engagement include promoting Benedictine stewardship of the environment, academic and service components into student-led communities, and inviting students to organize Civic Engagement Workshops led by campus and community leaders. Goals for Student Voice include establishing essay contests focusing on the intersection of politics and higher learning, creating a student-administered honor code, and establishing a Special Assembly Forum for students, faculty, and staff to discuss immediate and significant events..
Saint Mary’s College of California
Moraga, California
Affiliation: Religious
Carnegie Classification: Master’s 1–Comprehensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 2,525, Master’s: 1,083, Doctoral: 58
Overview
Saint Mary’s College of California is a Catholic liberal arts college and a Lasallian Christian Brothers institution founded in the tradition of the patron saint of teachers, Saint John Baptist De La Salle. As reflected in the mission statement, “a distinctive mark of a Lasallian school is its awareness of the consequences of economic and social injustice and its commitment to the poor,” Saint Mary’s aim is “to create a student-centered educational community whose members support one another with mutual understanding and respect.”
Goals
With the Core Commitments initiative, Walk the Talk, Saint Mary’s College of California will further encourage responsible citizenship, social justice, and personal integrity. To improve the larger campus-wide infrastructure, we are working on three levels: Community Leadership/Student Engagement, Curriculum Development, and New Institutional Strategies and Assessment. Community Leadership/Student Engagement engages students in campus-wide dialogue on social and civic responsibility. Based on these dialogues and the goals they outline, these dialogues support student-driven action plans. Curriculum Development is expanding existing social justice/community involvement programs across the curriculum and offers incentives for faculty to add social justice content to their courses in areas and schools where they are underrepresented.
St. Lawrence University
Canton, New York
Affiliation: Independent
Carnegie Classification: Baccalaureate Colleges–Arts & Sciences
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 2,182, Master’s: 123
Overview
Woven throughout the institutional objectives of St. Lawrence University is language that stresses the commitment of the development of students’ personal and social responsibilities. This commitment is embodied through our strong global and intercultural studies, residential education, civic engagement, and leadership. Our objectives do not speak, however, to the ethical responsibility of each citizen to protect and promote democratic principles, equality, and social justice, and they fail to foster an expectation that students will develop a commitment to creating a more equitable world.
Goals
St. Lawrence seeks to foster greater attention to values and to civic responsibilities for active participation in social change. Through a new center for diversity and social justice, St. Lawrence will bridge the divide between academic and student affairs by integrating multicultural initiatives and education for citizenship, leadership, and democracy.
The university will offer three community-wide deliberative dialogues, each of which will consist of a series of sessions over the course of one semester. These will help to assess how well St. Lawrence’s mission espouses engagement with issues of personal and social responsibility, as well as fostering a plural democratic praxis.
Core Commitments at St. Lawrence University
United States Air Force Academy
Colorado
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Baccalaureate–General
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 4,400
Overview
The Academy’s vision is to be the Air Force’s premier institution for developing leaders of character. Fundamental to life at the Air Force Academy are the Air Force core values of “integrity first,” “service before self,” and “excellence in all we do.” These values are remarkably similar to the first three Core Commitments dimensions of personal and social responsibility. The USAFA has completed a comprehensive revision of its institutional learning outcomes. Included in these new outcomes are several that are well-aligned with the remaining Core Commitments dimensions of “Taking seriously the perspectives of others” and “Ethical reasoning and action.” Together, these ideas highlight the institutional commitment to the development of personal and social responsibility.
Goals
The United States Air force Academy is using Core Commitments as a tool to assess and improve its institutional outcomes in two important ways. First, to create more integrated strategies for developing the outcomes related to responsible citizenship behavior across the institution. Second, to design and implement assessment strategies that will measure progress and guide improvement. In order to promote the development responsibility outcomes, USAFA has formed interdisciplinary “outcome teams” for each responsibility outcomes. Each team consists of faculty and staff from the core courses and programs (i.e., those in which all cadets participate) that have agreed to take primary responsibility for that outcome. The Academy has created the “Center for Character & Leadership Development.” This Center will advance the understanding, practice, and integration of character and leadership programs, and serve as a visible manifestation of USAFA’s commitment to character and leadership.
USAFA has also been working diligently to identify assessment strategies to measure cadets’ achievement of the responsibility outcomes. Largely, this has been accomplished with indirect (i.e., survey) measures, to include: the National Survey of Student Engagement, a “Commissioning Survey” to graduating class of 2007, and the PSRII. Each of the Outcome Teams is also working to develop and implement more direct measures of cadet achievement. USAFA has created draft rubrics for each of the responsibility outcomes, and the Outcome Teams will be pilot testing them and making revisions this spring. In sum, USAFA is working with Core Commitments to create an integrated curriculum for developing societal, professional, and individual responsibilities, as well as aligned assessment mechanisms to inform and guide progress.
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Baccalaureate Liberal Arts
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 4,358
Overview
The mission of the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point is "to educate, train, and inspire the Corps of Cadets so that each graduate is a commissioned leader of character committed to the values of Duty, Honor, Country and prepared for a career of professional excellence and service to the Nation as an officer in the United States Army." Since its founding two centuries ago, the Military Academy has accomplished its mission by developing cadets in four critical areas: intellectual, physical, military, and moral-ethical - a four-year process called the "West Point Experience."
Goals
USMA’s cadet development model, the Cadet Leader Development System (CLDS) has become an integral part of the USMA’s efforts to further integrate personal and social responsibility with the academy’s curriculum. To align domain goals with specific curriculum, CLDS domain teams created learning models based on theories of college student development. Using the AAC&U 2008 Greater Expectations Summer Institute in Utah as an opportunity to allow members of the CLDS Committee offsite time to collaborate on their efforts, USMA will synchronize the work of the domain teams, further integrate curricular experiences across the six domains, develop a comprehensive plan for the assessment of the CLDS domains, improve linkages for faculty development opportunities and rewards to CLDS, examine cadets’ opportunities for self-reflection within the context of CLDS, and establish community and campus partnerships that underscore curricular activities. Additionally, upon completion of the operational concept for cadet leader development, USMA will produce a document comparable in scope to the Educating Future Army Officers for a Changing World, which serves as a rational and justification for the structure, process, and content of the USMA curriculum.
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Doctoral/Research Extensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 11,470, Master’s: 2,381, Doctoral: 1,124
Overview
In 2007, the Ford Foundation awarded the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) a highly competitive Difficult Dialogues grant. The award recognized that the quality enhancement plan (QEP) that UAB developed for its Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) reaccreditation is a comprehensive and effective program that integrates academic instruction with diversity, respect for others, responsible dialogue, and ethical behavior. Beginning with a shared vision for UAB graduates, the QEP reminds the campus community that all units must function synergistically to fulfill our mission to prepare students for life, not just a career. UAB holds itself accountable for introducing, reinforcing, practicing, and assessing three competencies targeted for initial enhancement: writing, quantitative literacy, and ethical and civic responsibility. Thus, UAB is working to integrate academic instruction and cumulative experience in personal and social responsibility throughout students’ undergraduate years.
Goals
University of Alabama at Birmingham’s academic affairs and student affairs collaborated to implement a two-part freshman experience that introduces thinking, learning, dialoguing, and decision-making skills. The UAB Discussion Book initiative and the freshman learning communities comprise this gateway experience. Becoming an engaged, responsible student inside and outside of class is a first step towards becoming a responsible citizen of the local, national, and international community. Supplemental to these efforts, cumulative instruction and progressively challenging experiences in personal and social responsibility will be integrated into the mid-level courses of every major. Finally, every major is developing a capstone experience that synthesizes what seniors have learned and helps prepare them for professional, personal, and civic responsibilities.
Core Commitments at the University of Alabama at Birmingham
University of Central Florida
Orlando, Florida
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Doctoral/Research Intensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 39,545, Master’s: 4,382, Doctoral: 1,535
Overview
University of Central Florida (UCF), a metropolitan research university with more than 47,000 students, currently demonstrates significant activity in the five dimensions of personal and social responsibility. Through workshops, publications, and community outreach, UCF develops and contributes to programs that advance the integration of ethics into higher education. In any large university, a pressing concern is the ability to create a sense of personal and social responsibility among students, faculty, and community. UCF is dedicated to the development and promotion of a common core of ideals, activities, and programs that are able to bridge the individual/community divide pervading throughout large metropolitan institutions nationwide.
Goals
University of Central Florida's development goals involve creating innovative and exciting new research initiatives to teach ethical principles and study ethical decision-making in Interactive Performance Lab (IPL)/Story Box scenarios, creating department/college-level ethics task force committees to complement the university ethics task force, offering faculty development seminars to create course content for Core Commitments, extending our existing academic integrity seminar as a strategy to enhance and encourage academic honesty among students, and expanding student participation in “ethics bowl” competitions in on-campus and regional venues to enhance and improve ethics education for personal and social responsibility.
Core Commitments at the University of Central Florida
University of the Pacific
Stockton, California
Affiliation: Independent
Carnegie Classification: Doctoral/Research Intensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 3,535, Master’s: 379, Doctoral: 205, First-Professional: 2132
Overview
The University of the Pacific is a doctoral university with an undergraduate core, graduate programs, and three large professional schools. Nine academic colleges and schools operate on three campuses in Northern California: San Francisco, Sacramento, and Stockton. Enrolling only 6,300 students, The University of the Pacific is both complex and small. As a result of an extensive three-year discussion, Pacific produced a new strategic plan, Pacific Rising 2008-2015, that reflects a fundamental commitment to promoting the goals of personal and social responsibility. Three of the six core values at Pacific are whole person education, responsible leadership, and community engagement. Pacific named six commitments for action: innovation, collaboration, distinctiveness, whole-student, partnerships, and improvement.
Goals
In the context of Pacific Rising there are now six initiatives underway that will directly address, in varying degrees, all five dimensions of personal and social responsibility: three seminars; electronic portfolios; the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) leadership membership on “affective learning;” the study on integrating emotional intelligence competencies into the curriculum, co-curriculum, and admissions; the first-year experience committee; and a new student life model. Our overarching goal is to implement and coordinate these initiatives in order to develop a systematic, synthetic, and compelling approach to developing students’ ethical understanding and principled civic action during the entire course of their education at Pacific.
Wagner College
Staten Island, New York
Affiliation: Independent
Carnegie Classification: Master’s 1–Comprehensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 2,000, Master’s: 300
Overview
Wagner College has several programs to accomplish its mission: to prepare students for a meaningful life with successful careers by emphasizing scholarship, achievement, leadership, and citizenship. To facilitate “experimental learning,” the Wagner Plan links all students and faculty in both the freshman and senior learning communities to community based learning experiences. In 2006 Wagner also launched the Civic Innovations initiative to better integrate “civic engagement” into the curriculum. Six departments were matched with a related community based organization (i.e., education: New York City Public Schools or business: YMCA). Professors and community organizations then collaborate to co-construct syllabi that meet the needs of the partnering organization and the courses’ expected student learning outcomes. Each of these “Community Connected Departments” includes 24 courses per year and implements a fairly sophisticated assessment for the initiative; however, there is yet not an assessment to measure students’ awareness of and commitment to personal and social responsibility.
Goals
The AAC&U Core Commitments initiative provides a perfect opportunity for Wagner focus on deepening students’ personal and social responsibility through three approaches: Civic Innovations’ Community-Connected Departments; Essential Co-Curricular Competencies; and the Emerging Leadership Conference. To measure their awareness of and commitment to personal and social responsibility, students in the Civic Innovations Initiative Community Connected Department courses will complete two free writes with guided questions. Free Write 1 will occur at the outset of the semester, and free Write 2 will occur at the close of the semester. Students who complete multiple courses in the department will provide an Wagner an opportunity to measure student awareness and commitment over a longer time period. Wagner College is also in the process of designing a co-curricular essential core competency model. Every Wagner student will be required to choose 2 of 7 identified core competencies that must be met by graduation. Through peer review and e-portfolios, students will demonstrate their competencies through multiple methods (public presentation, writing, or projects work). Each competency will have criteria and a rubric by which they can be peer reviewed. Because personal and social responsibility is embedded in 6 of the 7 competencies, the Civic Innovations free-write would be an example of meeting one of the essential core competencies. Lastly, every fall, Wagner College hosts a two day seminar-based Emerging Leadership Conference for students. In 2008, students and faculty examined the goals of Core Commitments with the intent of expanding public discussion on ethical and moral issues within the campus community.
Winthrop University
Rock Hill, South Carolina
Affiliation: Public
Carnegie Classification: Master’s 1–Comprehensive
Enrollment: Undergraduate: 5,111, Master’s: 1,181
Overview
Founded as a teacher preparation institution for women in 1886, Winthrop has since become a diverse and coeducational university committed to the liberal arts tradition that provides national caliber professional education and develops leadership and civic responsibility. The Touchstone program, a core curriculum, promoting strong major programs in the liberal arts and professional areas as well as effective integration of academic affairs and student life, is instrumental in Winthrop’s success. Minorities constitute twenty-seven percent of Winthrop’s student body, and among similar institutions, the university has one of the highest six-year graduation rates for African American males. Recently, Winthrop has sharpened its focus on student learning and development as the center of its mission.
Goals
As part of the Core Commitments Leadership Consortium, Winthrop will infuse the five dimensions of personal and social responsibility throughout the Touchstone program by including them in the training for three of the four Touchstone courses and by making them prevalent in the assessment of students and faculty in the program. Using the PSR Institutional Inventory to identify areas where personal and social responsibility dimensions are weak, Winthrop is conducting activities such as workshops and training sessions to address those needs. To build assessments of personal and social responsibility into all program assessment strategies, the university is working with faculty to modify existing programs. Our long-term goal is to develop a center for ethical leadership at Winthrop University which reflects the five dimensions of personal and social responsibility.
Core Commitments at Winthrop University
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