Core Commitments: Educating Students for
Personal and Social Responsibility

An Essential Learning Outcome

Core Commitments asserts that ethical, civic, and moral development should not be addressed separately from students’ basic responsibilities as learners.

Core Commitments identifies five key dimensions of personal and social responsibility that describe developmentally appropriate goals for students in college:

Five Dimensions

1. Striving for excellence: developing a strong work ethic and consciously doing one’s very best in all aspects of college;
   
   
2. Cultivating personal and academic integrity: recognizing and acting on a sense of honor, ranging from honesty in relationships to principled engagement with a formal academic honors code;
   
   
3. Contributing to a larger community: recognizing and acting on one’s responsibility to the educational community and the wider society, locally, nationally, and globally;
   
   
4. Taking seriously the perspectives of others: recognizing and acting on the obligation to inform one’s own judgment; engaging diverse and competing perspectives as a resource for learning, citizenship, and work;
   
   
5. Developing competence in ethical and moral reasoning: developing ethical and moral reasoning in ways that incorporate the other four responsibilities; using such reasoning in learning and in life. 

While these five dimensions do not encompass all aspects of conscience and citizenship, they offer a compelling claim as the initial focus for a widespread reengagement with campus values and ethics.

To read about how Personal and Social Responsibility fits into AAC&U's larger list of essential learning outcomes, please visit our LEAP pages.