With respect to the posting below (December, 2003), Carnegie
Foundation president, Lee Shulman notes:

    "This month's commentary is written by the team of scholars who
    conducted a three-year study looking at the responsibility of
    colleges and universities to make moral and civic learning an
    integral part of the undergraduate experience. This team, led by
    Senior Scholars Tom Ehrlich and Anne Colby, produced a book,
    Educating Citizens: Preparing America's Undergraduates for Lives of
    Moral and Civic Responsibility, that is being used on more than 150
    college and university campuses. These campuses, with more engaging
    every month, have accepted the challenge to educate students who will
    leave their institutions with the understanding, the skills and the
    motivation to be morally responsible and civically engaged.

    This piece recognizes those institutions and challenges others to
    follow suit, noting that nothing less than our democracy is at stake.
    I think that you will find it both compelling and motivating."


                 The Spirit of Liberty

A different way to think about... Our responsibility as educators
By Anne Colby, Thomas Ehrlich, Elizabeth Beaumont, and Jason Stephens

Sixty years ago, in 1944, Judge Learned Hand spoke to thousands,
including many new citizens, at a huge "I Am An American Day"
ceremony in Central Park in the midst of wartime. "The spirit of
liberty," he said, "is the spirit which is not too sure that it is
right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand
the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit
which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias."

Those civic virtues are much in need these days, as America is
struggling with discord both at home and abroad. Over the past
several years, we have been looking hard at campuses throughout the
country to examine how and how well they are promoting the
development of their students as ethical and committed citizens,
imbued with the spirit of liberty.

Undergraduate experiences are just one part of a life-long
developmental process. But we have come to see that if campus
programs and activities are intentionally designed with these
outcomes in mind, colleges can establish the groundwork that students
will later build on, shape the intellectual frameworks and habits of
mind they bring to their adult experiences, change the way they
understand the responsibilities that are central to their sense of
self, teach them to offer and demand evidence and justification for
their moral and political positions, and develop wiser judgment in
approaching situations and questions that represent potential turning
points in their lives.

When we examined moral and civic education in America's colleges and
universities, we found, regrettably, that undergraduate moral and
civic education is not an institutional priority on most campuses.
This is particularly unfortunate because national studies show a
number of troubling trends among young Americans, including
undergraduates. Cheating in college, for example, has increased
considerably in recent decades. Research suggests that students do
not understand or share the values of academic integrity. Substantial
evidence also makes clear that the overall decline in civic and
political participation is especially pronounced among young adults,
including college students. Americans growing up in recent decades
vote less often than their elders and show lower levels of social
trust and knowledge of politics.

A few colleges and universities build moral and civic learning into
the heart of what they are doing with undergraduates. They make a
conscious effort to reach all of their students and use multiple
approaches to address the full range of dimensions that constitute
moral and civic development. We found institutions that do this in
every category from small religious colleges to urban public
universities and colleges, elite private universities, military
academies, and community colleges. And they do so in ways that ensure
the full spectrum of perspectives, from conservative to liberal.

Among the undergraduates at every campus are some who look for ways
to contribute to something larger than themselves, who are inspired
by moral ideals or who are passionate about social or political
issues. They are primed to take advantage of the many ways a college
education can deepen those convictions and bring them to a higher
level of intellectual and practical sophistication and competence.
But most students need help in college to further these goals. That
help should come in three arenas: the curriculum, including both
general education and the major; extra-curricular activities and
programs; and the campus culture, including honor codes, residence
hall life, and spontaneous "teachable moments," as well as cultural
routines and practices. Weaving moral and civic issues into the
fabric of every student's life should be an explicit goal on every
campus.

At Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, for example, all
students are required to take two courses in ethical inquiry. The
curriculum committee that designed this approach saw it as a "moral
primer," complementing co-curricular programs and enabling students
to think about their own moral compass and how to use it. Moral and
civic issues have also been integrated into the first-year writing
program, and students' writing has improved significantly along with
their capacity to understand complex ethical and social concerns,
according to Elizabeth Kiss, the Director of the Kenan Institute for
Ethics at Duke. In addition to these curricular changes, Duke has
also put in place a number of steps to create a sense of community on
the large campus, a "community of communities," as President Nan
Keohane calls it.

Along with incorporating moral and civic issues into coursework,
students often undergo dramatic transformations through their
participation in extra-curricular programs. Students in a sociology
and anthropology club called Sassafras at Spelman College in Atlanta,
Georgia, for example, apply what they are learning in their classes
to projects that help revitalize local low-income neighborhoods, and
are aided in their efforts by faculty. The work of this and many
other programs is coordinated through the Johnetta B. Cole Center for
Community Service and Community Building, which is named for a
charismatic former president of the college who brought a heightened
concern for moral and civic issues.

It is also important to have a campus climate that supports positive
values like honesty, open-mindedness, and respect for others. This
means not only having a strong honor code against cheating, though
that is certainly important, but also tangible symbols of a college's
values. At Portland State University, for example, a bridge linking
two buildings at the main campus entrance proclaims in large letters,
"Let Knowledge Serve the City." The university has many programs in
place to make that motto (which was initiated by students) a reality.
Service to the community and community partnerships are key elements
of curricular and extra-curricular activities and also provide the
focus for much faculty research.

We have seen some wonderful success stories such as the ones I've
mentioned, but we have also seen too many campuses where the moral
and civic development of students is ignored.  If we are fighting to
protect our basic moral values, our freedoms, and our democracy, we
must do more to ensure that succeeding generations gain the
understanding, skills, and motivations needed to preserve and promote
the spirit of liberty.
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