Press Release

Debra Humphreys
Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs
202-387-3760 ext. 422
Humphreys@aacu.org

AAC&U Names 15 National Leaders to New Board for Core Commitments Initiative

Board Will Guide Path-breaking National Effort to Make Personal and Social Responsibility a Central Focus of College Learning

May 11, 2007 – Washington, DC – The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) announced today the names of 15 individuals who will serve on an advisory board for AAC&U’s multi-project national initiative, Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility.  The initiative seeks to embed personal and social responsibility objectives pervasively across the institution as key educational outcomes for students and to measure the impact of campus efforts to foster such learning.  

“We are very pleased to have the opportunity to bring to this initiative and the schools involved the expertise and insights of such a distinguished group of individuals,” said Core Commitments Project Director and AAC&U Senior Vice President Caryn McTighe Musil.  “Each of these individuals brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in one or more of the five dimensions of personal and social responsibility on which this project is focused.  Their involvement will help the initiative to develop a compelling vision and effective practices to assure that today’s college students develop a strong sense of personal and social responsibility as an integral part of their college learning.”

Making up the Core Commitments Advisory Board are:

Larry A. Braskamp, senior fellow, AAC&U, and professor emeritus at the School of Education, Loyola University Chicago

Mitchell J. Chang, associate professor of higher education and organizational change, University of California Los Angeles Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

Anne Colby, senior scholar, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Thomas Ehrlich, senior scholar, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Walter Earl Fluker, professor of philosophy and religion, and executive director, The Leadership Center at Morehouse College, Georgia

Patricia Y. Gurin, Nancy Cantor distinguished university professor emerita of psychology and women's studies, University of Michigan

Patricia M. King, professor of higher education, University of Michigan

Donald L. McCabe, professor of management and global business, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Marcia Mentkowski, professor of psychology and director of educational research and evaluation, Alverno College

Laura I. Rendón, professor and department chair, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, College of Human Sciences, Iowa State University

Sidney A. Ribeau, president, Bowling Green State University

John Saltmarsh, director of New England Resource Center for Higher Education, Graduate College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities

Patrick T. Terenzini, distinguished professor of education, Higher Education Program and Senior Scientist, Center for the Study of Higher Education,  Pennsylvania State University

Carol Trosset, director of institutional research, Hampshire College

Twenty-five institutions currently comprise the Core Commitments Leadership Consortium: 

Allegheny College, Pennsylvania
Babson College, Massachusetts
Bowling Green State University, Ohio
California State University at Northridge
Concordia College – Moorhead, Minnesota
Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania
Miami University, Ohio
Michigan State University
Middlesex Community College, Massachusetts
Oakland Community College, Michigan
Portland State University, Oregon
Richland College, Dallas County Community College District, Texas
Rollins College, Florida
Sacred Heart University, Connecticut
Saint Anselm College, New Hampshire
Saint Mary’s College of California
St. Lawrence University, New York
Tulane University, Louisiana
United States Air Force Academy, Colorado
United States Military Academy, New York
University of Alabama at Birmingham
University of Central Florida
University of the Pacific, California
Wagner College, New York
Winthrop University, South Carolina

AAC&U has identified personal and social responsibility as “essential outcomes of a twenty-first century liberal education” in a series of major reports on college learning it has released in recent years including Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College and College Learning for the New Global Century.

AAC&U has identified five key dimensions of personal and social responsibility that form the basis of the Core Commitments initiative:

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 (classroom, campus life), the local community, and the wider society, both national and global;
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, for citizenship, and for 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.

Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility is supported by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

The mission of the John Templeton Foundation is to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in areas engaging life’s biggest questions. These questions range from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness, and creativity. Also recognizing the importance of character and virtue toward building a free society, the Foundation supports a broad spectrum of programs, publications and studies that promote character education from childhood through young adulthood and beyond.  Our vision is derived from John Templeton’s commitment to rigorous scientific research and related scholarship. The Foundation’s motto “How little we know, how eager to learn” exemplifies our support for open-minded inquiry and our hope for advancing human progress through breakthrough discoveries.  Information about the John Templeton Foundation can be found at www.templeton.org.

AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Its members are committed to extending the advantages of a liberal education to all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now comprises more than 1,200 member institutions—including accredited public and private colleges and universities of every type and size.

AAC&U functions as a catalyst and facilitator, forging links among presidents, administrators, and faculty members who are engaged in institutional and curricular planning. Its mission is to reinforce the collective commitment to liberal education at both the national and local levels and to help individual institutions keep the quality of student learning at the core of their work as they evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.