Promoting Citizenship

The Division of Student Affairs will enhance its commitment to prepare students for the responsibilities of citizenship and the demands of leadership.

We who now live are parts of a humanity that extends into the remote past, a humanity that has interacted with nature. The things in civilization we most prize are not of ourselves. They exist by the grace of the doings and sufferings of the continuous human community in which we are a link. Ours is the responsibility of conserving, transmitting, rectifying and expanding the heritage of values we have received that those who come after us may receive it more solid and secure, more widely ccessible and more generously shared than we have received it.

John Dewey, 1934, A Common Faith

Derek Bok, in his book Higher Learning, wrote that a "culminating experience" for many college seniors before the civil war was a course in which the president of the institution "lectured on the prevailing values of the day and applied them to important social problems and personal dilemmas." These "capstone" courses faded away, Bok wrote, as "the study of society and human behavior began to split into many separate disciplines, and the earlier consensus on values began to break down before a complex industrializing society."

We believe a distinguishing feature of the next decade will be a renewed effort to affirm and promote many of the civic virtues once taught in our classrooms, including the virtues associated with effective leadership.  This effort will include deliberate introduction of ethical issues at campus events and ceremonies (e.g. discussion of academic integrity policies at new student convocations) and the creation of opportunities for students to reflect upon personal ethics, the responsibilities of citizenship, and the demands of leadership as they participate in a broad range of campus activities, including university governance.

A consensus is emerging about which civic virtues and leadership skills educators should promote. They include Ernest Boyer's call for a "disciplined community" in which freedom is protected by the exercise of self restraint; Derek and Sissela Bok's affirmation of the importance of truth-telling in public life; and references by the Study Group on Excellence in Undergraduate Education to the need to promote "student outcomes" that include "persistence, leadership, empathy, social responsibility; and understanding of cultural and intellectual differences."

Most of these perspectives are included in the 1993 Report of the Wingspread Group on Higher Education.  The authors of that document concluded that:

Democratic societies need a common ground, a shared frame of reference within which to encourage both diversity and constructive debate about the common good. A free people cannot enjoy the fruits of its liberty without collaborative efforts on behalf of community.  Higher education has a central obligation to develop these abilities.

There are some values, rooted in the national experience, even defined in the Constitution, that Americans share. These "constitutional" values have evolved into a set of civic virtues:

• respect for the individual and commitment to equal opportunity;

• the belief that our common interests exceed our individual differences;

• concern for those who come after us;

• support for the freedoms enunciated in the Bill of Rights.

• the belief that individual rights and privileges are to be exercised responsibly;

• respect for the views of others; and

• the conviction that no one is above the law.

At heart, the virtues and leadership skills we would promote can best affirmed and applied in practice, both inside and outside the classroom. In addition to finding, promoting, and helping to manage such experiences, we seek to make them deliberate.  Our task includes engaging students in thoughtful conversation about the values they are forming, the values they hope to acquire, the leadership styles they are developing, and the kind of society they seek to build in the future.

Promoting good citizenship and leadership are components of most of the services delivered by the Division of Student Affairs. Our efforts include:

• An array of programming that addresses topics such as sexual misconduct, respect for ethnic and cultural diversity, the value of freedom of expression, the importance of academic integrity, and the ethical responsibilities of managers and administrators.

• The nationally recognized Maryland Leadership Development Program, which consists of annual training retreats for student leaders and students who aspire to leadership positions; a four-course series of leadership classes taught in conjunction with the Department of Counseling and Personnel Services; and numerous non-credit leadership classes and workshops.

• Development and promotion of opportunities for students to participate in and learn from community service.

• Support, enhancement, and assessment of the educational and adjudicatory functions of the Student Honor Council. Regular correspondence to and informational programs for faculty members concerning ways to promote academic integrity, and reduce academic dishonesty;

• Recruitment, training, organization, supervision and advising of student employees and student volunteers, including resident assistants, orientation advisors, peer counselors, and shuttle bus managers and drivers, among many others. Special attention is given to helping student employees and volunteers gain practical insights and experience in decisionmaking and organizational tasks.

• Advising student groups and student organizations involved in campus governance.

• Advising and developing regular programming for fraternities and sororities. These efforts include programs such as "Greek 101" (a system-wide pledge education program), Greek leadership retreats, and advising Greek governing groups, as well as individual chapters.

• Regular distribution of information to the campus community about standards of student conduct.

• Adjudication of student disciplinary cases in ways that emphasize and promote student moral development.

1. A commitment to academic integrity will become a significant, identifiable characteristic of the culture of the College Park campus.

2. Students will be encouraged to increase and record their leadership, community service, and organizational activities, preferably on a comprehensive "involvement transcript" available to prospective employers, and other educational institutions.

3. Implementation of a new vision for the Greek Life Program, addressing issues of membership recruitment and education, residence facility management, social policy management, and student scholarship.

4. All students will be given the opportunity and encouraged to participate in community service as an important component of their education as socially responsible citizens and leaders.