Volume 12, Issue 2 - Volume 12, Issue 2 (2011) Special Issue on Personal and Social Responsibility

Despite an historic commitment to educating students to become ethical, responsible graduates, there has often been a disconnect between student learning and student life in college. This special issue of the JCC focuses on current efforts of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) to give greater attention and priority to personal and social responsibility as an essential outcome of undergraduate education.

A surprising thing happened on the way to increasing secularism in American higher education: colleges and universities have become increasingly engaged with the moral values and character development of their students. This article examines the return to ethics and character on campus and what the search for core values and commitments means for undergraduate student learning and development.

This essay focuses on the need to educate the new persona educada, a dignified, honorable person with a good measure of social and personal responsibility who also possesses the habits of the mind and heart. To cultivate una persona educada requires a newly formed vision of education and pedagogy. Examples of three entrenched agreements that have become part of higher education’s harmful hegemonic structures are discussed. Finally, the elements of creating a sensing/thinking pedagogy, which unites the sentir of intuition and the inner life and the pensar of intellectual development and the outer life, are presented.

The conversation about essential learning outcomes of college has never been more active or important. Although much of the attention on learning outcomes is narrowly focused on cognitive outcomes, especially critical thinking, the need to educate students for personal and social responsibility has never been clearer. In this article the author draws upon data from the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Core Commitments: Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility initiative to argue that one dimension of personal and social responsibility, taking seriously the perspectives of others, is essential to active citizenship in today’s diverse democracy and, therefore, an essential outcome of a college education.

This article describes a set of lessons learned from a national project on education for personal and social responsibility that can be adopted across a variety of specific institutional contexts and missions.

In 2005 the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) launched a national initiative that championed the importance of a twenty-first century liberal education. What was unique about this initiative was the underlying assumption that educating for personal and social responsibility was “core” for an educated citizenry and should be taught. So the question became, "How does higher education teach responsibility?" Student affairs divisions at Winthrop University and Rollins College approached this question by focusing on collaborative programs and student learning experiences in the curriculum and cocurriculum with the ability to measure outcomes.

The author of this article explores the motivation factors that lead privileged college students to be involved in social justice efforts. The students participating in this study identified multiple reasons for their initial and continued involvement in social justice work, but all students identified three main sources of motivation: responding to guilt, understanding self as a resource, and being rewarded for social justice work. The students held various attitudes, feelings, beliefs, and understandings about these motivational sources that indicated self-interest was a key component of motivation for their support of social justice. Following a mutual perspective of self-interest, the students disrupted the notion that doing what benefits self must come at a cost to others.

The author of this article explores student affairs’s transition from student development to student learning from the standpoint of philosophical hermeneutics. The hermeneutical perspective further centralizes the role and place of student affairs work in the educational process. This perspective challenges the ego- or identity-oriented conception of the person, and offers a post-modern conceptualization of learning in educational experience.

This article makes the argument that Ernest Shackleton’s life and adventures might serve as a very useful and productive model for teachers. Through examining some of Shackleton’s methods and strategies regarding the treatment of his men, a great love and respect for his crew are revealed. This value for respect underscores the worth that effective leaders place on providing more than knowledge for their charges. The article examines how Shackleton, much like educators and their students, provided for the various human needs of his men. The author depicts the characteristics of a caring teacher as a navigator, gardener, leader, or servant.

Academic misconduct and technology have coupled to create a significant threat to the development and maintenance of professional responsibility and academic integrity among today’s university students. This case study illustrates the gap between faculty and student acceptance and understanding of the use of technology as a study aid and the ways this gap translates differently for each group as applied to professional responsibility and academic integrity. An actual academic misconduct case is presented that became a university model for dispute resolution, utilizing service learning as an alternative to strict sanctions.

Campus safety and the role of college and university officials relative to safety are important topics on the agendas of political leaders at the state and national levels. Student affairs leaders must consider how to contribute in a meaningful way to these very important conversations.

Because some Christian colleges prohibit same-sex sexual behaviors, the development of authentic sexual identities on these campuses may be difficult for gay and lesbian students. This article introduces the idea of an identity conflict that may occur between sexual and spiritual identities for gay and lesbian students at Christian colleges and briefly identifies the major factors that contribute to this conflict. Following this discussion, specific implications for student affairs practice are identified that exist as a result of this identity conflict. Specifically, enrollment communications and decisions, institutional values and culture, and student codes of conduct in relation to the intersection of gay and Christian identities on the college campus are discussed.

As an introduction to a new column focusing on interfaith cooperation on campus, the authors suggest a framework for engaging religious diversity on campus based on institution-wide vision and collaboration across levels of the campus “ecology” that lead to measurable student and campus outcomes. This framework takes into consideration how other diversity movements have impacted campuses and as such creates the possibility for long-term impact within higher education and beyond.

The author considers how to approach a request for a personal recommendation from someone whom the author does not wish to advocate. Ultimately, the author proposes that those asked to write recommendations have a right to say “no,” should they feel hesitant to recommend the candidate, and a responsibility to suggest that someone else might be a better choice to write a strong recommendation.