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Association of American Colleges and Universities Receives Grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Continue Work of National Initiative on Personal and Social Responsibility

New Phase of Core Commitments to Focus on Moral and Ethical Reasoning and Action; AAC&U to Convene Research and Educational Change Collaborative

Washington, DC—July 20, 2009—The Association of American Colleges and Universities announced today a new phase of work as part of its ongoing national initiative, Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility.  A new grant from the John Templeton Foundation will support a new phase of work in the project specifically addressing issues of moral and ethical reasoning and action.

In the next phase of Core Commitments, AAC&U will highlight the latest research and exemplary campus practices in advancing students’ abilities to confirm and acquire moral sensitivity, judgment, motivation, and character to act responsibly to self and others.  The project will examine research on how campuses are advancing students’ moral development and exactly how higher education contributes to or impedes students’ moral reasoning abilities and their ethical actions.

“Through the work of Core Commitments in its first three years, AAC&U has generated leadership from over 300 college presidents and supported projects on 23 college campuses to spur greater intentionality about advancing students’ personal and social responsibility as a central element of college learning,” said AAC&U Senior Vice President and Project Director Caryn McTighe Musil.  “Our initial research revealed that while there was consensus about the value of such an education, institutions were not yet offering sufficient opportunities for students to actually achieve these outcomes,” Musil explained.

Activities in the next phase of Core Commitments will include:

-the development of a moral and ethical development module for use with the Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory climate survey developed in the first phase of the project;

-a Research and Educational Change Collaborative including national researchers working on what current research reveals about how effectively higher education is currently developing students’ moral and civic growth.

-publication of three reports that feature data from the 2007 administration of a personal and social responsibility campus climate survey on 23 college campuses.  These reports will address issues of civic engagement; ethics, integrity, and moral reasoning; and perspective-taking.

-the development of a web-based resource bank of exemplary campus practices designed to promote students’ personal and social responsibility

AAC&U launched the Core Commitments initiative in 2006 as part of AAC&U’s continuing effort to achieve “greater expectations” for student learning.   Core Commitments:

• focuses national attention on the importance of students’ exploring questions about ethical responsibility to self and others,
• aims to reclaim and revitalize the academy’s role in fostering students’ development of personal and social responsibility, and
• helps campuses create learning environments that prepare students to fulfill their obligations in an academic community and as global and local citizens.

Core Commitments was developed in concert with AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) Initiative, which champions a set of learning outcomes—including personal and social responsibility—that are essential for all college students in the 21st century.   The initiative advances these outcomes through public advocacy and leadership development, the development of research tools and evidence, and a leadership consortium initially involving 23 campuses.

For information about Core Commitments and the campuses involved, see www.aacu.org/core_commitments.

About AAC&U

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 1200 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.

About the John Templeton Foundation

The mission of the Jon Templeton Foundation is to serve as a philanthropic catalyst for research and discoveries relating to what scientists and philosophers call the Big Questions. We support work at the world's top universities in such fields as theoretical physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and social science relating to love, forgiveness, creativity, purpose, and the nature and origin of religious belief. We also seek to stimulate new thinking about wealth creation in the developing world, character education in schools and universities, and programs for cultivating the talents of gifted children.

The foundation’s 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.