Character development in higher education is a complex process. This process has often been delegated to a single course on ethics or courses on religion. The authors of this article pose an alternative higher educational process whereby character development is rooted in a series of abilities that are contextualized throughout the entire undergraduate curriculum. These abilities, developed and assessed by faculty who study both the theoretical frameworks and who assess for student learning of these abilities, provided an overall framework for developing character within the context of their discipline and of a liberal arts general education.
College campuses are increasingly focusing on the need to address the domain of character development in both traditional and nontraditional students. From work on how students handle conflict in light of their own values (Roper, 2007) to the developments of frameworks for moral identity (Hardy, Walker, Olsen, Woodbury, & Hickman, 2014) to the exploration of the connections between perceived character and prosocial behavior (Winterich, Aquino, Mittal, & Swartz, 2013), the effort to predict and teach for behaviors that reach beyond individual self-interest is alive and growing.
Whether couched in programs to enhance leadership, character development, moral identity, or prosocial behavior, it is clear that the enterprise of developing students who can clearly articulate and engage their own value stance is a complex one. Given that so many efforts are aimed at understanding and enhancing the development of character in higher education, and given that these efforts come from so many different disciplines, including philosophy and religion, psychology and the social sciences, it seems that character development has no one disciplinary home, but lives across many disciplines as an ability to enact what is known or believed or held as important.
We have evidence in higher education that college students can develop a sense of moral insight and sensitivity throughout their educational process (Astin & Antonio, 2000, Rogers, 2002). Some curriculums try to teach character and value stance through a focus on a specific religious discipline or set of value principles. Over the decades, however, more focus has been placed on the larger frameworks of moral development and character education in young adulthood (Lapsley & Carlo, 2014), especially within liberal arts colleges.
Character Definition within the Context of Higher Education
The development of character strengths requires that we examine what we mean by character. In a study of the relationship between strengths of character and well-being, Park, Peterson, and Seligman (2004) present several definitions of character strength. Among their descriptors is: “good character comprises a family of character traits” (p. 604). They affirm that character consists not as one “segregated mechanism” but of activity that involves self-knowledge regarding both what virtuous activity may be and a plan for how to enact it.
Kuh and Umbach (2004) also see the complexity of character development within higher education settings as “variously defined.” They define character as “a constellation of attitudes, values, ethical considerations and behavioral patterns that represent what people believe and value” (p. 37). They note the importance of relatively recent attention to the teaching of civic engagement and the long history of teaching systems of values and ethics. Using four character dimensions in the National Survey of Student Engagement (2002), they analyze student responses related to knowledge of self, ethical development and problem solving, civic responsibility, and general knowledge. As they discuss their findings, these authors point to different kinds of gains made between liberal arts colleges and religiously based institutions, baccalaureate general and doctoral institutions, as well as the inverse relationship between character development and institution size (with students at smaller schools reporting larger gains). Among their conclusions were that school mission and curriculum were important to students’ reported character development gains; that student involvement in community and volunteerism efforts enhanced gains; and that intentional assessment of character development-related assignments was critical to student self articulation and ability in character related issues.
Moral Development and Civic Activity
Student involvement in service opportunities is cited by many as an important way to increase both ethical competence and civic literacy (Annette, 2005; Astin & Antonio, 2004; Rogers & Mentkowski, 2004; Winterich et al., 2013). Perhaps this is because active engagement with others, combined with self-reflection regarding value stance as well as civic and cultural awareness, contributes to the development of character. The more recent literature on adult moral development picks up on the multidimensionality of character. One such study examines the relationship between moral identity and prosocial behavior (Winterich et al., 2013). These authors examine the relationship between internalized moral identity and identity symbolization (wherein a person gains their moral identity from how they feel others see them) and participation in prosocial opportunities. In an online survey that uses a moral identity measure and is followed by an invitation to volunteer for a task, they found that when internal moral identity is high, so is the act of volunteering. Among the 293 adults surveyed volunteering increased for low moral identity reporters when recognition was given for the act of volunteering. The relationship between recognition for prosocial behavior and adult engagement points to the importance and opportunity of curricular intentionality when working with higher education students. For those who may not come to college with a highly internalized moral identity, one way to develop their prosocial behavior and in turn to build upon their internal moral strength is to engage students with each other and with the communities around them. As students are challenged to interact, to participate, and to explore life beyond self-interest, they are given the tools to develop character strengths.
These processes are perhaps best accomplished when approaching them in a multidimensional, multidisciplinary fashion. Lapsley and Carlo (2014) assert that “the need has never been greater to reach beyond the current boundaries of moral developmental scholarship to adequately address such issues [e.g. violence, poverty, genocide, war] and these efforts will require broad, integrative and multidisciplinary theoretical and methodological approaches” (p. 3). This is certainly true for higher education. Creating curriculum that activates students’ moral sensibilities and character strengths that encourage students within their disciplines to think and act in collaborative ways.
A Curricular Model for the Development of Character
Alverno College, a liberal arts college for women located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is no stranger to teaching and assessing in both multidisciplinary and multidimensional ways. A primary goal of higher education at Alverno is to foster the development of identity in relation to performance roles within the classroom, the work environment, and society. In achieving this goal, Alverno faculty consider the holistic development of the learner within the teaching and assessing process. Reflecting on the underpinnings of this curriculum, Mentkowski and Associates (2000) express it this way:
For the individual adult, consolidating one’s identity in a broad field of action—so that it matters what kind of learner, parent, or professional one is—establishes an actionable link between one’s level of holistic development and role performance. Fostering identity development in adults may seem to make even more demands on education and employers. But further integration of meaningful identity, including moral identity, is fostered by the same kind of broadening activities, such as volunteer work and civic participation that support holistic development. (p. 527)
The design of the undergraduate curriculum at Alverno is structured such that students learn within general education courses and within the content of their disciplines, and enact their learning through their demonstration of eight “Alverno abilities.” These “Alverno Abilities” were originally generated by the Alverno College faculty based on their expertise as educators and in view of what contemporary life requires of adults. Guided by their educational experience, informed by their varied disciplines, and cognizant of professional requirements they developed an ability based curricular framework to ensure student learning the abilities were “broken open” into levels that were pedagogically derived. Based on theoretical issues regarding what should be learned in a college curriculum and perhaps more importantly, based on a focus of learner needs and learned outcomes within the context of the learner, the faculty created a process to engage and assess learners across the curriculum. These abilities (including very brief definitions) are found in Table 1.
Alverno Abilities
| 1. | Communication | The effective communicator habitually makes meaning by connecting with everything involved in communication: people, ideas, texts, media, and technology. She integrates a variety of communication abilities (speaking, writing, listening, and reading, as well as computer and quantitative literacy) to meet the demands of increasingly complex communication situations. |
| 2. | Analysis | The competent analyzer is a clear, critical, and independent thinker. She combines data, experience, reason, and expertise to make and reexamine judgments. |
| 3. | Problem solving | The competent problem solver defines problems and integrates a range of abilities and resources to reach decisions, make recommendations, or implement action plans. |
| 4. | Valuing in decision making | The responsible decision maker is reflective and empathic in approaching the value issues in her life. She habitually seeks to understand the moral dimensions of her decisions and accepts responsibility for the consequences of actions taken in all facets of her life. She understands and is sensitive to a variety of perspectives and experiences in making her own decisions. |
| 5. | Social interaction | The competent interactor knows how to work effectively with others to achieve outcomes, resolve conflicts, and build strong relationships. She demonstrates in her interactions knowledge of analytic frameworks, reflection with self-awareness, and willing engagement with diverse others. |
| 6. | Effective citizenship | The effective citizen makes informed choices and develops strategies for collaborative involvement in community issues. |
| 7. | Developing a global perspective | The student works to understand how issues are globally interconnected—geographically, culturally, historically, and economically—in order to develop a broader perspective about them and make informed judgments about them. She strives to find a balance between recognizing diversity and maintaining an awareness of the common interests held by citizens of the world. |
| 8. | Aesthetic engagement | The aesthetically engaged student makes informed artistic and interpretive choices. She integrates the intuitive dimensions of her participation in the arts with broader social, cultural, and theoretical frameworks. She articulates the relationship between her aesthetic sensibilities and her experiences within and outside of the arts. |
| 1. | Communication | The effective communicator habitually makes meaning by connecting with everything involved in communication: people, ideas, texts, media, and technology. She integrates a variety of communication abilities (speaking, writing, listening, and reading, as well as computer and quantitative literacy) to meet the demands of increasingly complex communication situations. |
| 2. | Analysis | The competent analyzer is a clear, critical, and independent thinker. She combines data, experience, reason, and expertise to make and reexamine judgments. |
| 3. | Problem solving | The competent problem solver defines problems and integrates a range of abilities and resources to reach decisions, make recommendations, or implement action plans. |
| 4. | Valuing in decision making | The responsible decision maker is reflective and empathic in approaching the value issues in her life. She habitually seeks to understand the moral dimensions of her decisions and accepts responsibility for the consequences of actions taken in all facets of her life. She understands and is sensitive to a variety of perspectives and experiences in making her own decisions. |
| 5. | Social interaction | The competent interactor knows how to work effectively with others to achieve outcomes, resolve conflicts, and build strong relationships. She demonstrates in her interactions knowledge of analytic frameworks, reflection with self-awareness, and willing engagement with diverse others. |
| 6. | Effective citizenship | The effective citizen makes informed choices and develops strategies for collaborative involvement in community issues. |
| 7. | Developing a global perspective | The student works to understand how issues are globally interconnected—geographically, culturally, historically, and economically—in order to develop a broader perspective about them and make informed judgments about them. She strives to find a balance between recognizing diversity and maintaining an awareness of the common interests held by citizens of the world. |
| 8. | Aesthetic engagement | The aesthetically engaged student makes informed artistic and interpretive choices. She integrates the intuitive dimensions of her participation in the arts with broader social, cultural, and theoretical frameworks. She articulates the relationship between her aesthetic sensibilities and her experiences within and outside of the arts. |
Note: Note that because Alverno is a women’s college at the baccalaureate level, the pronouns are feminine.
The assessment of each of these abilities occurs within the context of courses in each discipline as well as through external assessment processes.
Assessment of individual student performance by faculty is continuous, as an essential part of learning, throughout courses that are designed to be developmental within themselves and in relation to others. A particular assessment may focus on a combination of course outcomes or on a single one. These outcomes, which integrate general abilities with disciplinary content, contextualize, in a discipline, the appropriate level of the institution-wide student learning outcomes. Whether a student’s assessment involves writing an analytic article for a literary publication or participating in a meeting to evaluate a business plan, she knows that she is to demonstrate how her understanding of disciplinary content informs her decisions. (Loacker & Rogers, 2005)
It should be noted that teaching and assessing for the integration of meaningful identity requires collaboration and intention on the part of faculty and staff who directly support student learning. At Alverno, most faculty members belong to two departments—the department of their discipline and an ability department. From the beginning, faculty understood that responsibility for the viability and implementation of the ability framework required ongoing faculty involvement. The faculty created “ability departments” for what we now might think of a continuous improvement process. In this way, ability departments consist of faculty from many disciplines, ensuring representation of multiple disciplines in the development and oversight of a curriculum that enhances student ability and performance. This process in turn contributes to faculty development in their scholarship and teaching regarding valuing processes (Eastberg, 2011). Academic and cocurricular staff members often belong to ability departments as well, thus supporting student development within the context of the whole college community.
Throughout their liberal arts education at Alverno all students engage all eight abilities. Furthermore, the eight abilities are not so distinct from each other that they can be taught simply as individual competencies. Rather, these abilities represent learning processes: ways to actively engage what one knows. Therefore they cannot be treated as separate, either from each other or from the learner who performs them. For example, the ability to analytically reason cannot be complete without the ability to problem solve; additionally, one needs to be able to effectively communicate the reasoning or problem solving process.
However, in order to teach for these abilities we make conceptual distinctions among them. Each ability, learned carefully throughout the general education curriculum, helps the student to build the appropriate framework to work effectively with the subject matter of their courses. As students mature throughout the curriculum, they learn to integrate the abilities with both course content and other abilities and so are able to engage their learning in more complex ways (Alverno College Faculty, 1974/2005).
For the purposes of understanding the development of character within this curriculum we have chosen to focus on three of the eight abilities. These three abilities: valuing in decision making (also referred to as valuing), social interaction, and effective citizenship are most helpful in illustrating how the complexity of a construct like character is best learned through integrating several dimensions of character development.
The Valuing in Decision Making Ability
At Alverno College, we take seriously the importance of ethical decision making that is self-aware, sensitive to others, and conscientious about the dynamic interaction between individuals, cultures, and societies. At the heart of our educational enterprise is the ongoing venture to educate in ways that go beyond the simple transmission of knowledge about values and ethics, to be concerned with the ways in which our students’ best integrate thinking and feeling, integrity and belief, and appropriate reflection and action. Drawn from the theoretical work of philosophers, theologians, and developmental psychologists, the faculty who originated this ability within the Alverno curriculum were well aware of both the external and the internal dimensions of valuing:
Valuing not only touches on the active surfaces of daily life but also reaches into the depths of self, the “holy ground” of one’s private sense of ultimate meaning. It is a quintessentially human activity, by which each person strives toward psychological fulfillment and wholeness. In valuing, each individual creates a living link between the transcendent mysteries of life and its concrete circumstances. (Earley, Mentkowski, & Schafer, 1980)
Since the inception of this ability, we have framed the process as one which involves the student’s ability to apply what she knows, believes and understands in order to arrive at a judgment. To do this the student must clarify, compare, justify, project implications and consequences and decide, even when having incomplete information. The valuing process engages her ability to express her judgments and can communicate them in ways that are sensitive to others’ perspectives, to remain open to feedback and new information (Alverno College Faculty, 1992; Alverno College Faculty, 1976/2005 Early et al., 1980). Early et al. (1980) provide a succinct description of what valuing requires of students:
The valuing process also involves the student’s ability to act upon her judgment and to weigh the consequences of her actions. And it includes the critically important ability to assess her own activity in these many areas, to reflect upon and modify her own valuing. (pp. 6–7)
In our working with this ability over time, the roles of emotion, self-awareness and empathy in the valuing process have become even more apparent. The work of Jordan, Kaplan, Baker Miller, Stiver, and Surrey’s self in relation theory (1991), Seligman’s theory of “learned optimism” (2006), and Bandura’s assertion (1993) that there is power in our beliefs about what we can and cannot accomplish have all contributed to our own understanding of how the interplay of self and other, emotion and belief, work together in the formation of sound character judgment. Additionally the literature on the importance of emotional awareness as a leadership trait (Cavallo & Birenza, 2001; Cherniss, 2000; Goleman, 1998; Mintzberg, 2004) points to the need for teaching for leadership integrity through the engagement of students in their own valuing process.
From more than 30 years of teaching experience and systematic scholarship (Mentkowski & Associates, 2000), we have identified patterns in our students’ learning and performance that represent how they come to develop, articulate, and apply their own valuing stance. Our goal is to ignite in learners a capacity to behave in ways that are concomitant with their principles and to help students make the connections between their deepest beliefs and principles and the ways they show and share those with the environment around them. We also see that it is not enough to have students ready to articulate and share their own values, but that they need to be cognizant of others’ beliefs and principles and engage them in ways that are constructive. We work to ensure that student learning within the variety of disciplines they encounter will both challenge and support particular principles and beliefs. Therefore we see students having the following needs: the need to both express and reflect; the need to understand the ways that emotion affects decision making; the need to articulate and to carefully listen to others; the need to consider ways that societies impact personal decisions, and the need to be aware of ways that individuals can and do effect the stance of a culture.
Some of the dimensions that this approach to teaching valuing in decision making include are that of affect (emotion), the thinking processes involved in the valuing processes (cognition), issues of spirituality and belief (ontology, epistemology), behaviors that emanate from internal meaning-making, and the ways that society and culture both shape and are shaped by the values, principles and beliefs of individuals (ecology). We know that the valuing process is a highly complex one, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish one aspect of the process from another.
Although these dimensions are intertwined, we nevertheless challenge our students to engage the process of understanding each of the dimensional aspects of the valuing process as they develop a vocabulary for analyzing and expressing the role of values in decision making (also referred to as valuing). These dimensions include value examination, moral sensitivity, and moral and ethical reasoning. Value examination refers to the process whereby a student comes to clearly identify the sources of her values and sorts through the ways in which her valuing is enacted in her everyday life. Moral sensitivity refers to her ability to find her way through the complexities of the relationships she engages in and to sort out the emotional content of those relationships to make decisions whereby she respects both her own needs while at the same time being sensitive to the needs of the other. Ethical reasoning is about the choices that she makes, from personal decisions in her daily life to the decisions that impact life choices and the people, organizations, and larger environments that are affected by those choices.
As with each of the abilities in the Alverno College curriculum, the valuing ability is interwoven across the entire set of curricula of the disciplines (in both general education and major fields of study). Students in Alverno College’s ability-based curriculum have multiple opportunities within course content to demonstrate their proficiency at a particular level of the ability that is taught and assessed in any given course. We refer to these opportunities as assessment and we record success with a given ability and level through validations. These validations, in turn, contribute to successful completion of courses.
Student learning in Alverno’s ability-based curriculum is guided and assessed through a transparent set of criteria related to each of the abilities. In the valuing ability, as in all of the Alverno abilities, criteria levels unfold developmentally. The beginning level of all abilities focuses on self-awareness. In the valuing ability students reflect on their own values and where those values come from. They not only identify these value sources (usually articulated as other individuals such as parents or grandparents or teachers), but they also identify indicators of the values they hold (someone who values “helping others” can point to ways she actually does this). They are further asked to identify some of the basic emotions that are connected with their values. They then start to connect their emotions and their understanding of their values to how these have informed their behavior, and they consider other points of view regarding how to think and act.
The intermediate level focuses on the construction of value stances in families, in organizations, and in societies. The intermediate level of valuing draws from Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological perspective, where the importance of the reciprocal relationships between individuals and the systems that surround them is key. Here students explore the social contexts of values and how they are influenced by and can influence those contexts. As they move more deeply into the disciplinary values of their major, they identify the core values of that discipline as well as their own value stance related to it.
At advanced levels of the valuing ability, the student develops ways to critically examine her own values and to explain what processes inform her value stance. Here she clearly expresses the ways that her increasing knowledge of other perspectives informs changes in the personal and professional decisions she makes. In her advanced college work, she intentionally integrates emotion, thought, and belief as she gives expression to her own stable center of care and strength. Ultimately, such integration develops her moral imagination as she aptly articulates disparate aspects of values within a major field of study or a profession, as for example, within a code of ethics. She can thus use valuing frameworks to address significant issues in personal, professional, and societal contexts as she balances her sensitivity to the differences around her with her ability to take initiative in challenging areas of needed change. The criteria that define the advanced level of this ability are intentionally more flexible, allowing each academic discipline to integrate these criteria firmly into an integrated advanced level outcome for the discipline.
The levels of the Valuing in Decision Making ability are more specifically outlined in Table 2.
Alverno College Valuing and Decision-Making Criteria
| VALUING IN DECISION MAKING CRITERIA | |
| These are the criteria for the Valuing in Decision Making ability. They are divided both into beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels and into Levels 1–4 (general education curriculum) and the advanced levels (to be integrated with advanced level outcomes of each major). Each level contains a bolded description of the ability embraced by that level, as well as “student-friendly” descriptors of criteria in that level. Items noted with an asterisk (*) are considered “stretch” criteria, or criteria that developmentally guide the learner to the next level of the ability. | |
| BEGINNING VALUING (Levels 1 and 2): The student identifies and infers values of self and others in multiple contexts (foundation building) | |
| Level 1: Students Identify Own and Others’ Values and the Emotions They Evoke | Level 2: Students Connect Affective, Cognitive, Spiritual, and Behavioral Dimensions of Valuing |
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| INTERMEDIATE VALUING (Levels 3 and 4): Students explore their own and others’ valuing and decision making within the social contexts that shape them and within the contexts of discipline frameworks (Point of Initial Integration). They grow to critically evaluate their values with an informed awareness of the process of value transformation and change. | |
| Level 3: Students Can Articulate the Reciprocal Relationship of Their Own Values and Their Social Contexts | Level 4: Students Use the Perspectives and Concepts of Particular Disciplines to Inform Their Moral Judgments and Decisions |
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| ADVANCED VALUING | |
Valuing at the advanced level provides the opportunity for students to integrate valuing with the content of her academic work in an advanced and meaningful way. She will further develop her ability to critically examine her own values and explain how they inform her value stance. She will be able to express ways that her increasing knowledge of other perspectives informs her own changes in personal and professional decisions. She will recognize the integration of emotion, thought, and belief in this process, as well as give expression to her own stable center of care and strength and that which is at the “heart” of her decision making. Ultimately, such integration will develop her moral imagination. While much of “how” this happens will depend upon the outcomes for each discipline, the following integrating frameworks may help in the development or refinement of those outcomes, where valuing is concerned. | |
| Level 5 and 6 Combine and Integrate With Major Discipline | |
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| VALUING IN DECISION MAKING CRITERIA | |
| These are the criteria for the Valuing in Decision Making ability. They are divided both into beginning, intermediate, and advanced levels and into Levels 1–4 (general education curriculum) and the advanced levels (to be integrated with advanced level outcomes of each major). Each level contains a bolded description of the ability embraced by that level, as well as “student-friendly” descriptors of criteria in that level. Items noted with an asterisk (*) are considered “stretch” criteria, or criteria that developmentally guide the learner to the next level of the ability. | |
| BEGINNING VALUING (Levels 1 and 2): The student identifies and infers values of self and others in multiple contexts (foundation building) | |
| Level 1: Students Identify Own and Others’ Values and the Emotions They Evoke | Level 2: Students Connect Affective, Cognitive, Spiritual, and Behavioral Dimensions of Valuing |
I can name my own values and the emotions they evoke. can infer values of others and the emotions they evoke in me and in them. I can identify people, places, and events as sources that have shaped my values, and/or the ways my spirituality impacts my values. I can identify how I use the values I hold in my current roles as a family member, friend, student, employee, and citizen. *I can recognize that certain situations have moral issues embedded in them. *I can name the emotions that the moral issues in a situation evoke in me. | I can express the connection between values, emotions, and spirituality (and/or personal philosophy). I can explicitly connect values and emotions to the actions they motivate me to take. I can reasonably speculate on the sources of others’ values. I can communicate how knowing the sources of others’ values has an impact on understanding my values. I recognize that my own values can be in conflict when I make decisions. I can examine the consequences of my past decisions and use them to work through and consider alternatives in a current moral issue. *I consider multiple perspectives and alternate paths and their consequences in arriving at an informed moral judgment. *I can express how communities other than my own believe and act out of the values that they do. |
| INTERMEDIATE VALUING (Levels 3 and 4): Students explore their own and others’ valuing and decision making within the social contexts that shape them and within the contexts of discipline frameworks (Point of Initial Integration). They grow to critically evaluate their values with an informed awareness of the process of value transformation and change. | |
| Level 3: Students Can Articulate the Reciprocal Relationship of Their Own Values and Their Social Contexts | Level 4: Students Use the Perspectives and Concepts of Particular Disciplines to Inform Their Moral Judgments and Decisions |
I can examine the ways in which my values are socially influenced. I recognize that others’ values are also socially influenced. I can articulate ways that the values of entire communities are socially developed. I can critically judge the values I hold in relation to their societal conditioning. I can explain how my actions and/or decisions influence the values of the broader community. *I understand that moral conflicts are rooted in different value systems within and across communities. *I can listen attentively to the value positions of others and strive to experience the situation from within their value frame and feelings. | I can specify core values at the heart of a particular discipline. I can explain how core values of a particular discipline inform or challenge my own and others’ value systems. I can explain how core values of a specific discipline contribute to the development of principles and policies in the broader community. I can explain how my commitments and decisions contribute to the development of principles and policies in broader communities. *I can constructively critique decisions and policies emerging from various value frameworks. *I can critically examine my own value stance and I can talk about ways that such examination may lead me to change my values. |
| ADVANCED VALUING | |
Valuing at the advanced level provides the opportunity for students to integrate valuing with the content of her academic work in an advanced and meaningful way. She will further develop her ability to critically examine her own values and explain how they inform her value stance. She will be able to express ways that her increasing knowledge of other perspectives informs her own changes in personal and professional decisions. She will recognize the integration of emotion, thought, and belief in this process, as well as give expression to her own stable center of care and strength and that which is at the “heart” of her decision making. Ultimately, such integration will develop her moral imagination. While much of “how” this happens will depend upon the outcomes for each discipline, the following integrating frameworks may help in the development or refinement of those outcomes, where valuing is concerned. | |
| Level 5 and 6 Combine and Integrate With Major Discipline | |
I can identify and reflect upon the valuing frameworks of a major field of study or profession and examine those values within the context of the values of other disciplines, cultures, and perspectives. I can articulate disparate aspects of values within a major field of study or profession (e.g., within a code of ethics). I can sensitively and productively interact in interprofessional and multicultural decision-making situations in moving toward the achievement of goals. I can use the valuing frameworks of a major field of study or profession to address significant issues in personal, professional, and societal contexts. I can consistently examine and cultivate my own value system in order to take initiative as a responsible self in personal, professional, and societal contexts. I can examine value frameworks within my field of study/profession and work effectively with others to influence and effect positive change. I can collaboratively resolve professional value dilemmas, whether they be inherent in the profession’s code of ethics as applied to a given situation or transcend issues covered in the code. I can articulate my own sense of “vision” for my work in the world. | |
Table 2 makes clear that the teaching, learning, and assessment of the valuing ability at Alverno engages faculty and students in systematic, developmental experiences that lead to student demonstration of what the ability means, particularly as expressed in her focused study of particular disciplinary and professional areas. In the next section, we illustrate how two other abilities—Effective Citizenship and Social Interaction—also contribute to the holistic development of the character of Alverno undergraduate students.
Assessing for the Valuing Ability: An Example
To provide evidence for how the valuing ability is integrated into the curricular content and requirements at the course level we offer an example of an assignment from a required course in the Professional Communication Major at Alverno. This assignment is designed to address one or more dimensions of the valuing ability (among other abilities offered for validation in that course) at a level appropriate for that course and as reflected in ability outcome statements printed in the course syllabus.
Public Communication: Principles and Practices is a required public speaking course at the sophomore level. As stated on the syllabus, the course offers the students the opportunity to develop and demonstrate competence at level three of abilities in analysis, integrated communication, and valuing. The outcomes, or criteria, reflecting level three valuing in this course are stated as follows:
As you prepare for and present speeches, you will clarify your values. This process will involve:
identifying your values related to communication topic, audience, and content;
exploring ways technology affects the relationship between your values and actions;
recognizing the impact of moral issues on self, others, social institutions, and cultures; and
raising new value questions.
The first assignment of the semester in this course requires the students to give a five to seven minute speech to classmates that shares and explains the significance of a cultural artifact. This artifact, which might be an actual object, an event, a place, et cetera, must be presented in such a way as to provide new insights to the class as to its value to a particular culture or subculture. The introduction to the assignment makes explicit the connections among dimensions of valuing as stated in the criteria for Levels 2 and 3:
Your first informative speech delves into the issue of culture and identity. Its purpose is to further introduce you to the rest of your PCM 200 classmates. Additionally, it is designed to heighten your awareness of the diversity of your peers and allow you to examine ways in which your values are socially influenced. You will be expected to listen attentively to the value positions of others and strive to experience their situations from within their value frame and feelings. (Thompson, 2002)
Class discussion following the speeches, as well as the student’s required self assessment of her own performance as both a speaker and a listener, serve to reinforce the valuing dimensions of the assignment at the same time the student is building upon her oral presentation skills. Specific instructor feedback related to each of the criteria for the assignment lets both the student and the instructor know if the student has performed at the level of the required abilities. This feedback also informs the student about her strengths and her areas to develop related to the valuing ability.
In a more advanced psychology course, Clinical Psychology, students are required to meet the advanced psychology outcome of ethical insight and action. This advanced—level outcome was constructed by integrating the advanced levels of valuing and effective citizenship with the content of salient psychology disciplinary outcomes. This outcome states that students will demonstrate that they will appropriate the ethical tools and diversity guidelines necessary for engaging and reflecting upon clinical practice. They are further required to demonstrate an interest in and a sensitive response to opinions, ideas and approaches that are different from their own.
For this assessment students are told to carefully read the American Psychological Associate code of ethics and as well as the guidelines for cultural diversity. They are asked to pay attention to how the code and guidelines inform the work of a professional helper in the mental health field. They read an article about a professional helper to becomes a victim of racism (in a way that his unrelated to his professional role), and how he works to examine his own values and the values of the society as he returns to his practice. Students then write a paper in which they express their own core values related to their own work (or internship work) as a professional helper. They explain these values and how they see themselves putting them into practice, both in their present clinical setting and in their anticipated, future work. In their discussion they are required to refer to specific ethical principles and multicultural guidelines that support their stance as a helping professional. They are assessed by the instructor according to the ways that they meet the specific criteria of the assignment.
The Effective Citizenship Ability
The effective citizenship ability focuses on supporting our students to make informed choices about community issues. As students move through the Alverno curriculum they are challenged to engage in meaningful life experiences that involve an awareness of and participation in the various communities that surround them. The Effective Citizenship Department at Alverno defines the process as one in which the student progressively develops her capacity to “feel socially responsible to her community and to take corresponding action to support its assets and to deal with its concerns” (Alverno College Faculty, 1974/2005b, p. 51). As part of effectively demonstrating the effective citizenship ability, students learn about organizations and the communities both within and external to these organizations. They explore the ways that organizations and communities interact, as well as ways to directly engage in service to people through civic work.
At the heart of effective citizenship are four distinct dimensions. They include:
awareness;
information gathering;
judgment; and
community involvement.
These dimensions work as an overall framework for the student as she progresses through this ability. In her work with effective citizenship, the student integrates content from general education and disciplinary courses to make herself more aware of what is happening in her community, in society and in the world. Using the tools of her discipline and the other Alverno abilities, she gathers needed information to help her make sound judgments about community, societal, or global need. As she advances within this ability, she develops action strategies as well as ways to evaluate the effectiveness of her engagement with community, societal, and global issues. She gets involved with some aspect of the local community through service learning, whereby she applies her disciplinary knowledge as well as her ability to act in informed and responsible ways. As she works within the community, she evaluates her work within the context of the integration of effective citizenship and her disciplinary frameworks. As with the other Alverno abilities, the effective citizenship ability walks a student through levels of development, as indicated in Table 3 (Alverno College Faculty, 1974/2005b).
Alverno College Effective Citizenship Ability
| Beginning Levels: The student identifies significant community issues and assesses her ability to act on them. |
| Level 1: She develops her self-assessment skills and begins to identify frameworks to describe community experience. |
| Level 2: She uses discipline concepts to describe what makes an issue an issue and to develop skills necessary to gather information, make sound judgments and participate in the decision making process. |
| Intermediate Levels: The student works within both organizational and community contexts to apply developing citizenship skills. |
| Level 3: Learns how to “read an organization” in terms of how individuals work with others to achieve common goals. |
| Level 4: Develops both a strategy for action and criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of plans. |
| Advanced Levels in Areas of Specialization: The student takes a leadership role in addressing organizational and community issues. Levels 5 and 6 Combine and Integrate with Major Discipline. |
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| Beginning Levels: The student identifies significant community issues and assesses her ability to act on them. |
| Level 1: She develops her self-assessment skills and begins to identify frameworks to describe community experience. |
| Level 2: She uses discipline concepts to describe what makes an issue an issue and to develop skills necessary to gather information, make sound judgments and participate in the decision making process. |
| Intermediate Levels: The student works within both organizational and community contexts to apply developing citizenship skills. |
| Level 3: Learns how to “read an organization” in terms of how individuals work with others to achieve common goals. |
| Level 4: Develops both a strategy for action and criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of plans. |
| Advanced Levels in Areas of Specialization: The student takes a leadership role in addressing organizational and community issues. Levels 5 and 6 Combine and Integrate with Major Discipline. |
She works effectively in the civic or professional realm and works effectively with others to develop their ability to participate. She tests developing theory, anticipating problems that are likely to emerge, and devising ways to deal with them (pp. 52–55). |
The effective citizenship ability supports student growth in civic awareness, engagement, and leadership. Like the other abilities, this ability works in tandem with content knowledge across disciplines. Rather than engaging this ability in isolation or as a series of fragmented learning assignments, students demonstrate their effective citizenship using the lenses of their disciplinary contexts. This then roots each student in an understanding of what it means to be an effective citizen as she proceeds into whatever career opportunities await. An example of a student working with this ability follows:
In a nursing course where students work in community health contexts, the student spends time analyzing community strengths and needs. Based on this analysis she identifies a specific need and then works with community representatives to meet this need. In one instance, a student recognized that many of the families she visited were unable to afford age-appropriate toys for their children. She worked with health educators and nurses to develop a colorful brochure about using commonly found home resources to make toys, e.g., rolling a sock into a ball. The brochure was so well received that it was approved for distribution through the health department. (Alverno College Faculty, 1976/2005a)
The Social Interactionability
Typical core values guiding character education such as respect, trust, and empathy are typically enacted in social interaction, whether through interpersonal exchanges or group discussion. And so we turn next to the Alverno social interaction ability as the third ability that contributes to our students’ character development. As with valuing and effective citizenship, Alverno College faculty are perhaps unique in their dealing with the complexity of the conceptualization of social interaction ability and its assessment.
In conceptualizing and updating the meaning of the ability over the last 40 years, faculty have identified three dimensions of social interaction that guide student development:
Analytic frameworks—“that broad range of knowledge, information and sources that enable students to interact effectively with others in diverse social and cultural contexts” (Alverno College Faculty, 2005, p. 35). Among these frameworks are five models, developed by faculty and based on different purposes of social interaction: making a decision, building relationships, developing others, deepening understanding, and managing conflict.
Self-awareness—“the student’s conscious awareness of her attitudes, beliefs, emotions, and cognitive processes and how they affect her behavior and reactions” (p. 35). Self-awareness is supported explicitly through processes of self assessment that apply across abilities and are elicited through faculty-designed prompts to help students become more conscious of their behavior and its sources.
Willingness to engage—“the student’s disposition to be open to interaction with others” (p. 36), in particular with those who may come from different cultural or social groups or who have had experiences different from her own.
Faculty use these three dimensions to plan learning experiences and assessment that develop social interaction ability in students, defined as “the act of meaningfully communicating with others in one-on-one and group situations with a conscious awareness of purpose, effective process, and personal impact” (Alverno College Social Interaction Department, 2014). These include a signature assessment in the student’s first semester, where she participates in a simulation of a group called together by the governor to recommend a candidate from among three candidates who are nominated for an environmental oversight position. Volunteer external assessors from the Milwaukee community observe each group and then give one-on-one feedback to each student on her interaction behaviors and on her contribution to the group’s process.
As students move through the curriculum, they employ various analytic frameworks appropriate to varied interaction situations and apply their growing skill in on-campus and off-campus settings. As with the other Alverno abilities, the social interaction ability walks a student through levels of development as indicated in Table 4 (Alverno College Faculty, 1974/2005b).
Alverno College Social Interaction Ability
| Beginning Levels: The student learns about frameworks and self assessment skills to support interaction across the five purposes. |
| Level 1: Recognizes analytic frameworks as an avenue to becoming aware of her own behaviors in interactions with diverse others and to participating fully in those interactions. |
| Level 2: Gains insights into the affective and practical ramifications of her interactions, in their social and cultural context, by observing others’ examples, experiencing new situations, and applying analytic frameworks (pp. 36–37). |
| Intermediate Levels: The student focuses on her own interaction, using analytic frameworks and self awareness as she engages others in increasingly effective interaction across a range of situations. |
| Level 3: Purposefully extends herself in concrete actions and plans aimed toward increasing her effectiveness in group and interpersonal interactions, based on a careful analysis and awareness of self and others in social and cultural contexts. |
| Level 4: Displays, and continues to practice, increasingly effective interactions in a variety of groups and interpersonal situations, reflecting cognitive understanding of social and cultural contexts and awareness of affective components of her own and others’ behaviors (pp. 37–38). |
| Advanced Levels in Areas of Specialization: The student integrates discipline-specific frameworks with the social interaction purposes in order to function effectively with diverse stakeholders as she collaborates, negotiates, and coordinates in her professional role. |
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| Beginning Levels: The student learns about frameworks and self assessment skills to support interaction across the five purposes. |
| Level 1: Recognizes analytic frameworks as an avenue to becoming aware of her own behaviors in interactions with diverse others and to participating fully in those interactions. |
| Level 2: Gains insights into the affective and practical ramifications of her interactions, in their social and cultural context, by observing others’ examples, experiencing new situations, and applying analytic frameworks (pp. 36–37). |
| Intermediate Levels: The student focuses on her own interaction, using analytic frameworks and self awareness as she engages others in increasingly effective interaction across a range of situations. |
| Level 3: Purposefully extends herself in concrete actions and plans aimed toward increasing her effectiveness in group and interpersonal interactions, based on a careful analysis and awareness of self and others in social and cultural contexts. |
| Level 4: Displays, and continues to practice, increasingly effective interactions in a variety of groups and interpersonal situations, reflecting cognitive understanding of social and cultural contexts and awareness of affective components of her own and others’ behaviors (pp. 37–38). |
| Advanced Levels in Areas of Specialization: The student integrates discipline-specific frameworks with the social interaction purposes in order to function effectively with diverse stakeholders as she collaborates, negotiates, and coordinates in her professional role. |
She consistently and with increasing autonomy using multiple disciplinary theories, frameworks, and models to interpret behavior and monitor her own interaction choices. She uses leadership abilities to facilitate the achievement of professional goals in effective interpersonal and group interaction (p. 39). |
The social interaction ability supports student growth in listening, empathy, civil discourse, negotiation, and other skills. When students match skills to specific purposes, they are able to hone their interaction in varied settings. Like the other abilities, social interaction works in tandem with content knowledge across general education and the disciplines and with other abilities, particularly analysis, problem solving, and developing a global perspective. Rather than engaging this ability in isolation or as a series of fragmented learning assignments, students demonstrate their social interaction ability in a wide range of contexts, from discipline-focused classes, student organizations, and volunteer activities. Through these experiences, students come to recognize the impact good social interaction has in their development for professional and civic life. An example social interaction at the advanced level follows:
Advanced work in a capstone course of business majors, for example emphasizes leadership and professional responsibility. The student serves as a member of a small team of external consultants for a Wisconsin corporation wishing to develop its Asian market. The student collaborates on research tasks and negotiates the development of recommendations for the team to present to their client. Through interactions with her peers, discussions with the corporation-client, and in a simulated meeting in the new market and country, the student develops and demonstrates professional interaction skills, including problem solving, teamwork and conflict management. The project ends with a Powerpoint presentation and question—answer session with the corporation—client regarding the group’s recommendations. (Alverno College Faculty, 1976/2005a)
Conclusion
Alverno’s holistic development of our students, while unique in the design of an ability-based curriculum, suggests some key elements that may be useful to other higher education institutions seeking to attend to character development in the college years. Given our experience, we recommend that character development be explicit, developmental, and integrated.
Character development needs to be explicit so that students can fully engage in exploring the questions and moral dilemmas that lead to their value stance and moral positioning. While college catalogs and mission statements may reference moral education and/or character development, students are most likely to experience growth in the context of their studies. Because each discipline has within it implicit values, sometimes made explicit in a code of conduct or statement of ethical practice, moving toward an explicit focus on character requires some way to ensure that students engage activities that bring the values of the discipline to light. Service learning, for example, can provide a context for some.
Character development needs to be developmental. In many college curricula, assuring developmental experiences may be more difficult, unless there are clear sequences of courses. But colleges can explore ways to identify specific areas across the 4 years where attention to moral questions can be focused. Early courses in the major, for example, can investigate the relationship of ethics to the discipline, and later courses can engage students with moral dilemmas of practice. This process could be led by a group of interested faculty representing disciplines that are concerned with ethical practice or character.
Character education needs to be integrated across disciplines, with application to civic and professional life. This element can require more heavy lifting on the part of higher education, particularly when disciplines appear to be unconnected with one another and to life after college. However, the importance of developing graduates with a moral compass suggests that it’s worth asking how a more connected approach might be brought about. Based on our experience at Alverno, we found that we needed to create the organizational structures necessary to make this happen.
Finally, character education needs to be recognized for the complexity it embraces. The development of character comes not from a specific ethics code or an externally imposed moral stance, no matter how well such elements are built into the curriculum. The way that character is learned is through the learner’s individual integration of elements such as value stance, interaction with personal integrity, and claim to civic responsibility. The teaching of these elements will inevitably address theoretical frameworks and great works of art and humanity. The individual learner, though, has to be prepared to not only view the great works of history, religion, and the humanities from a distance, but must be prepared to interpret the complex messages that these works hold, often through the lens of culture, decision-making dilemmas, and opportunities to serve and celebrate.
