For Immediate Release

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

AAC&U Releases Report on Engaging Diverse Viewpoints on College Campuses

New Data on What Faculty, Students, and Administrators Think and What Facilitates Perspective-Taking

Washington, DC—September 16, 2010—The Association of American Colleges and Universities released today a new report, Engaging Diverse Viewpoints: What Is the Campus Climate for Perspective-Taking?, highlighting data gathered as part of its initiative, Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility.  Written by Eric Dey and his associates at the University of Michigan, Engaging Diverse Viewpoints focuses on the opportunities students have on today’s college campuses to weigh multiple viewpoints as they make judgments, and examines their perceptions of their own development of capacities to use evidence-based reasoning and engagement with difference in problem-solving.  The publication reports quantitative and qualitative findings from the administration of a campus climate survey of 33,000 faculty, students, student affairs professionals and academic administrators on twenty-three campuses.  The survey, called the Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory, was developed and administered through the Core Commitments initiative which has been supported since 2006 by grants from the John Templeton Foundation.

“Core Commitments posits that students are ill-prepared for work, life, and civic participation if they have not developed a sense of responsibility to others,” says AAC&U’s Senior Vice President and director of Core Commitments, Caryn McTighe Musil.  “Listening to and learning from others—even those with whom you might disagree—can accelerate students’ overall knowledge about a wide range of subjects and their understanding of other people.  This report shows that the glass is half full–nearly half of students say their understanding of difference has expanded while in college.  But a full eight-ounce glass is far better.”

Engaging Diverse Viewpoints documents unequivocally that students, faculty, and administrators all agree that “perspective-taking”—engaging with diverse points of view and experiences—remains a bedrock element of a college education.  Ninety-three percent of students and 97 percent of academic administrators, faculty, and student life professionals agreed either “strongly” or “somewhat” that preparing students to take seriously the perspectives of others should be an essential goal of a college education.  The data also suggests, however, that a gap exists between the aspiration and the actuality of this goal.  For instance, nearly three-fifths of students (58.4 percent) and more than three-fourths of campus professionals (77.3 percent) “strongly agreed” that helping students recognize the importance of taking seriously the perspectives of others should be a major focus of their campuses.  However, only about one-third of students (32.5 percent) and a similar proportion of professionals (33.0 percent) “strongly agreed” that their institutions currently made perspective-taking a major focus.

Despite this gap, however, a majority of students do believe that they increase their capacities for perspective-taking while in college.  For instance, 52.6 percent of students strongly agreed with the statement, “I have developed an increased ability to learn from diverse perspectives during the time I have been in college.”  Nearly all students also generally believed that classes on their campus encouraged them to research ideas and explore controversial issues using evidence-based claims, with 93.3 percent of students reporting that this happened frequently or occasionally.  Only 39 percent of students, however, reported that faculty members frequently “publicly advocate the need for students to respect perspectives different from their own.”

“Perspective-taking is one of the foundational distinctions between a horizon-expanding education—a liberal education—and narrow training,” said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider.  “This capacity, which should be developed by a liberal education, is essential in a diverse democracy where we so urgently need citizens with the capacity to work together—across differences—to tackle difficult challenges and create solutions to pressing societal problems.  This capacity also is required in today’s workplace.  This research suggests that we need to double down on our commitments so that all students leave college with this capacity.”

In addition to providing data on the perceived campus climate for perspective-taking, the report also offers data on some of the kinds of curricular and co-curricular activities associated with students’ beliefs that college experiences promote awareness of diverse perspectives.  For instance, those students who participated in community service activities are more likely to report having increased their ability during college to “understand the evidence, analysis, and perspectives of others, even when [they] disagree with them.”  More than 61 percent of students who participated in community service strongly agreed with this statement while only about 52 percent of students who did not participate in service strongly agreed with it.

Finally, qualitative data in the report also provide another window into students’ actual experiences of their diverse campus environments.  As the report notes, “Several students talked about connecting across political differences.”  For instance, one student said, “One of my hallmates is very liberal, whereas I am more conservative.  In high school, I probably wouldn’t have given someone so liberal the time of day, but I talk to my hallmate all the time about a wide variety of topics.”  Another student described a similar experience: “I am a liberal living in a hall corridor that has many conservative students living in it.  We often discuss political and social issues with each other and we do it with respect for one another.  I think that living in such close proximity exposes people to different viewpoints.”

The full report, along with other reports from the project, is available online at: http://www.aacu.org/core_commitments/publications.cfm.

About Core Commitments

Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility aims to reclaim and revitalize the academy’s role in fostering students’ development of personal and social responsibility. It is designed to help campuses create learning environments in which all students reach for excellence in the use of their talents, take responsibility for the integrity and quality of their work, and engage in meaningful practices that prepare them to fulfill their obligations as students in an academic community and as responsible global and local citizens. Supported by generous grants from the John Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org), Core Commitments is a signature AAC&U initiative designed to advance the personal and social responsibility outcomes identified as essential in AAC&U’s Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) initiative.

About the Personal and Social Responsibility Inventory (PSRI): An Institutional Climate Measure

The PSRI is a campus climate survey developed as part of the Core Commitments initiative. It is designed to gauge participants’ perceptions about the opportunities for learning and engagement with issues of personal and social responsibility across an institution. The PSRI was developed in 2006 under the direction of Lee Knefelkamp and Richard Hersh with research assistance from Lauren Ruff. The inventory consists of three types of questions about the five dimensions, tailored for each of the four constituent groups:

• Attitudinal items: participants choose the degree to which they agree with a statement about the institution (choosing from Strongly Agree, Agree Somewhat, Disagree Somewhat, Strongly Disagree, No Basis for Judgment)
• Behavioral items: participants choose the degree to which they experience a particular phenomenon at the institution (choosing from Frequently, Occasionally, Never)
• Open-ended items: participants provide text related to experiences, programs, and practices at the institution that help students to develop personal and social responsibility

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 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.

Information about AAC&U membership, programs, and publications can be found at www.aacu.org.