LIVING THE MISSION:
HOW DRAKE CAN CULTIVATE MORALITY IN STUDENTS
A Proposal
Saundra Britton
Kayla DeBruin
Jane Fiegen
Brad Gilbert
Nate Koppel
Dylan McClain
Shawn Prakash
Alison Saunders
Rebecca Schweitzer
Rachel Traficanti
Sarah Twinem
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Executive Summary………………………………………………………
2
Introduction………………………………………………………………...
4
Purpose…………………………………………………………………….
5
Proposed Curriculum..…………………………………………………….
6
The University……………………………………………………………...
Cognitive Elements
Non-cognitive Elements
Roles and Relationships………………………………………………….
Teacher-Student
Student-Student
Teacher-Teacher
Community…………………………………………………………………
Curriculum
Service Learning
Resident Assistants
Campus Atmosphere
Conclusions………………………………………………………………..
8
References…………………………………………………………………
63
1
34
46
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In order to better fulfill the Drake Mission of providing an exceptional learning
environment that provides students with the tools to have meaningful personal,
professional lives and the ability to act as responsible global citizens, we propose the
adoption of a new element in the Drake curriculum, which we shall refer to as the Drake
University Liberal Arts Capstone (or "DULACS"). DULACS represents a comprehensive
four-year education which each year building on the last:
• First year: A first-year class of approximately 20 students similar to the current
FYS class.
• Second year: A second-year class of approximately 20 students led by senior
mentors exploring a specific topic pursued in an interdisciplinary manner.
• Third year: A third-year class with varying enrollment structured as a codependent study with faculty oversight, designed to develop a curriculum for the
fourth year experience.
• Fourth year: A fourth-year class where a few seniors, under the guidance of a
faculty advisor, lead a sophomore class.
Many arguments from various dialogues within philosophy support the viability of
this new curricular structure. Research from cognitive science suggests that in order for
Drake to more effectively accomplish the task of assisting students in moral
development, we need to first appreciate what skills that entering students possess.
Drawing influence from Kohlberg's schema of moral development and Moshman's
schema of cognitive reasoning, we argue that this new curriculum will help students
achieve higher-order metacognition in that they will be able to effectively balance values
with situational factors in ethical dilemmas.
In addition to cognitive elements of moral understanding, emotions also play a
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fundamental role in recognizing situations that require ethical deliberation. By creating a
learning environment that fosters emotional development, Drake will be more likely to
produce graduates who are well-rounded and can pursue meaningful personal lives.
We seek to explore alternatives to traditional approaches to education and
redefine the roles of and relationships between Drake faculty and students in order to
foster their more holistic development. This involves thinking about professors as
partners in a quest seeking understanding rather than authoritative conveyers of
knowledge, and also thinking of students as agents capable of creating their own
dialogue. Through altering our approach to education, we hope to facilitate discussion
and fosters connections both inside and outside the classroom.
Students at Drake experience "community" on various levels: as a relational force,
as a wider environment, and as an environment in on-campus residential environments.
For any ethic-based curriculum to have a lasting effect on student's lives after they
leave Drake, it must take into account the way that participation in community helps
students learn the skills and judgment necessary to form moral relationships.
Community moral education can be aided by adding a service-learning component to
the DULACS curriculum and by changing the role of Resident Assistants to be as peer
mentors and dorm facilitators rather than watchdogs.
By taking into account the aforementioned forces that influence moral
development, DULACS will help Drake embody its guiding principles and live its
Mission.
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INTRODUCTION
Can we encourage moral growth in college-age students? The problem we find in
encouraging moral growth is the apparent disconnect between thought and action.
Students say the rights things when it comes to morality, but they do not consistently act
in ways we would commonly call “moral.” Specifically, within the classroom, students
can use critical thinking to solve a course-based problem. But, should a similar dilemma
occur outside of the classroom, students fail to make the connection between “morality”
and the issue at hand. The goal of our plan for moral development involves bridging this
gap by showing students that moral issues are not merely academic, but also a part of
daily life. This project is an account of philosophy of education and philosophy of mind.
We took a philosophical approach to this problem. Other lenses, such as
sociology, political science, or psychology, each have a voice. However, philosophy
combines all of these disciplines into a cohesive vision. What we lack in statistical data
we make up with an involved discourse drawing on a wide range of issues. As students
within the Drake community, we take our personal experience as knowledge, as well as
our broader academic understanding. Our study of philosophy gives us a unique
advantage, which philosopher Robert Frodeman explains:
“Rather than primarily being specialists who have mastered a particular
sub-discipline of knowledge, philosophers best serve society as
professional amateurs, helping communities gain a sense of how the parts
of our lives fit together.”1
Taking Drake’s mission statement as our starting point, we began our work to
find ways to make Drake students more moral. The explication of Drake’s mission calls
1
Robert Frodeman, 2005: 355.
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for the cultivation of “meaningful personal lives and professional accomplishments” as
well as “responsible global citizenship.” Drake has identified the responsibility that the
University and its members assume. We have expanded on those responsibilities. The
result is a liberal arts capstone sequence that fulfills the goals of the mission statement
and a philosophical account of moral education.
In the pages that follow, we will present the philosophical grounding for our
proposed curriculum. First, we examine the cognitive elements of moral understanding,
including a description of various schemas of moral development. Once the cognitive
elements are established, we then move to the non-cognitive aspects. These cover the
moral application of emotion and imagination. Next, we explore the relationships that
make up Drake University. Three basic relations – student-student, student-faculty, and
faculty-faculty – each contribute to moral development. The last section of the paper
covers the issue of community, both within Drake and between Drake and Des Moines.
PURPOSE
As upper-level students with diverse educational backgrounds, we have a unique
insight into the overall quality of the Drake experience. At the start of the semester, we
found ourselves faced with two questions: (1) Can students be taught morality?; and (2)
If so, how can this be done? This project is our attempt to answer these questions while
still honoring Drake’s mission.
It is Drake University’s mission to endow graduates with meaningful personal
lives, the ability to achieve professional accomplishments, and the means to become
responsible global citizens. While currently Drake has implemented many curricular
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changes to promote these values, there is significant room for improvement. This
proposal outlines several recommendations that will enhance students’ abilities to
become more morally-conscious graduates. In doing so, students will lead more
meaningful personal and professional lives while responsibly engaging in global
citizenship.
PROPOSED CURRICULUM
FIRST YEAR: Developing critical thinking and dialectic capacities
Students take a traditional FYS-type course, and class sizes are kept as small as
logistically possible. We have conceived of two possible ways to achieve consistency in
what the FYS ideally provides to students. One possibility is that a common text or
theme is used across all FYS classes to facilitate dialectical engagement in class, and
all students are expected to write critical analyses regarding the subject material.
Alternatively, an outcomes-based approach can be used to assess whether the FYS is
accomplishing what it is meant to do: foster critical reading, writing, and research skills.
The professor acts as a guide for the students to aid them in understanding material.
Professors should focus on introducing first-year students to different modes of thinking,
and to the critical analysis of one’s own beliefs.
SECOND YEAR: Beginning guided, independent scholarly work
Students take a peer-directed class taught by seniors. The senior facilitators act
as a guide for the sophomores to aid them in understanding the material. Class size is
undetermined because the number of senior students teaching the classes may be
unpredictable. Professors serve the role of faculty advisor to the seniors, overlooking
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and only occasionally intervening. Sophomores participate in group discussions,
projects, and individual critical thinking assignments, with senior students modelling the
skills and motivations requisite for independent academic research. The process of
cognitive dissonance and critical self-reflection should become more prevalent in one’s
academic work, and instill an interest and passion for learning.
THIRD YEAR: Transitioning to more independence in scholarly work, and
preparing for peer leadership
Students participate in a co-dependent study with a small number of other
students. The topic of this investigation may vary, but together, the group pursues their
research in an interdisciplinary manner. A faculty advisor guides students in finding
relevant materials, keeping a timeline, and interpreting difficult material. The goal of this
class is twofold: first, to expand upon the independent research skills and collaborative
learning dynamics instilled the first two years, and second, to formulate a curriculum to
teach as senior DULACS facilitators. Keeping in mind that many logistical issues come
into play with retention of students in this program, (some of which include study
abroad, early graduation, and those who opt out of the fourth-year class) there may be
need for more structured university recruitment of senior facilitators in the DULACS
program.
FOURTH YEAR: Developing leadership in an academic sense, as well as a finer
appreciation for the complexity of moral issues
Students teach the curriculum that they developed the previous year to a group
of sophomore students. Thus, this creates a self-perpetuating community of learning. A
faculty advisor serves both the sophomores and seniors in the class, and forms an
individual relationship with the senior mentors. They give seniors practical advice on
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teaching the class, and thus further promote an understanding of responsible leadership
and critical inquiry.
Peer mentoring in the academic sense, though involving elements of broader,
more social peer mentoring such as that engaged by a PMAC, is notably distinct.
Participants in this “academic community” learn to appreciate a diversity of viewpoints,
and gain confidence and proficiency in tackling complex, nuanced issues in a critical
and collaborative manner. What our entire curricular suggestions facilitate is a graduate
who has gained a nuanced understanding of responsibility, power relations, and the
complex nature of academic research through individual experience. These faculties, as
we shall explicate in our paper, form a conceptual basis for ethically desirable thought
and action.
THE UNIVERSITY
COGNITIVE ELEMENTS OF MORAL UNDERSTANDING
I. Psychosocial theories of moral development and their cognitive elements
If we ask the question whether people are getting smarter, we have a definite
answer: they are, and quite drastically so. The Flynn Effect documents the rise in
average IQ scores across the world over the past few decades, and it shows that in this
age, with increasing enrollment in post-secondary education, our IQ has increased, on
average, about 9.7 points.2 However, faced with the question of whether we are
necessarily more moral people, then I question how confidently we can say that the type
of moral progress we have made as a whole necessarily reflects the jumps we seem to
2
Kipp and Shaffer, 2007.
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make in intelligence. This is what leads us to re-evaluate the role of the Drake
curriculum: to investigate how it could be tailored to maximize the potential for guiding
our university’s graduates towards living an ethically desirable life.
The question of how to live a meaningful and moral life, we believe, exists at
the root of the educational system. As we develop, enhance, and make meaning of our
professional selves, the University should provide some way for us, as students, to
ground our pursuits and talents in a broader purpose of bettering humanity. This
awareness of the implications our choices have on others’ emotional and physical wellbeing is something valuable and conducive to living an ethically ideal life. Phronesis is
a term used by Aristotle to describe the capacity to enact certain cognitive and noncognitive attributes that are highly conducive to moral and just actions. Of these
attributes, recognizing the moral aspects of a situation, recognizing a multiplicity of
approaches to problem solving, and choosing action by virtue of a holistic, equitable
thought process are the most directly relatable to the cause of developing higher moral
proficiency. These considerations are properly evaluated from two perspectives. The
first is epistemology, which gives a philosophical perspective of beliefs, and the
mechanisms that are at play as we justify, rationalize, and create our own “algorithms of
truth”. The second is cognitive science, which provides a psychosocial perspective that
differs from the philosophical perspective by being descriptive: it attempts to provide an
account of how we think when facing moral dilemmas and how we sort through
problems. We believe that there exists ample potential for Drake to enhance the moral
capacity of its students by virtue of curricular modifications, and we will explicate both
the psychosocial and philosophical evidence suggesting the potential efficacy of such
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changes.
We will start by examining what contemporary developmental psychologists
have generated regarding how we cognize during morally challenging situations, or how
we respond to hypothetical moral dilemmas which require higher-order moral reasoning
skills. (i.e., Milgrim experiments, Zimbardo experiments, etc.) We will provide a brief,
and by no means exhaustive account of the “stages” of moral development articulated
by Lawrence Kohlberg. As we progress along the stages of Kohlberg’s scheme of
moral development, we become more proficient in approaching the ethically desirable
response during moral dilemmas. Such descriptive frameworks put the philosophical
components of ideal ethical behavior into behavioral terms that can be loosely defined
as the goals we are setting for our university in terms of moral development.
Pre-Conventional
Conventional
Post-Conventional
1. Obedience and punishment orientation
2. Self-interest orientation
3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
4. Authority and social order-maintaining orientation
5. Social contract orientation
6. Universal ethical principles, or a “principled conscience”3
Moral agents in the first level tend to be concerned with the self in an egocentric
manner, and there is no recognition that someone else’s point of view may differ from
one’s own. The second (conventional) level shows the reasoning characteristic to
adolescents and adults. People perform actions to fulfill stereotypical social roles, and
they begin to recognize approval or disapproval from their peers. They also begin to
appreciate an inherent value in doing the right thing. In stages three and four of the
3
Kipp and Schaffer, 2007.
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conventional level, the concept of culpability, or of absolute adherence to a law (and
deviance from a law defining what is morally wrong) is how the moral agent within this
stage is able to separate a bad action from a good one. Thus, it is usually called the
law-and-order stage.
In Stage 5, we begin to view others as holding distinct opinions, values, and
beliefs. We progress beyond acknowledging this to fully respecting and honoring an
impartial understanding of one another. Things are viewed under the overarching
principles of the social contract, with a slight twist of utilitarianism. Stage 6 has an
unequivocal backbone: justice. Laws are viewed as valid only when they are firmly
entrenched in justice, and we learn not to accept social contracts for the purpose of a
deontological approach to moral action, but rather, we embrace someone else’s
existence. Functioning at this level involves some recognition of the pervasiveness and
unavoidability of one’s biases in making meaning of phenomena.
Alisdair MacIntyre wrote, on the centrality of bias in perception and
understanding:
“there is no standing ground, no place for enquiry, no way to engage in
the practices of advancing, evaluating, accepting, and rejecting reasoned
argument apart from that which is provided by some particular tradition or
other.”4
There are immense implications in that perspective for the definition of moral
ends. One issue that our approach touches on is guiding someone to reflect critically
upon him or herself and actually learn to develop more sophisticated affectations of
“otherness” to their senses. Thus, the conceptual apparatus, and the idea of
prejudices/biases as being unavoidable and even necessary (insofar as any sort of
4
John Wall, 2003.
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conceptual apparatus comes from a particular tradition because we do not simply start
with nothing in our baggage, so to speak) in the task of interpreting “otherness” or “the
other” is an issue which is brought up at two levels: epistemological justification for an
understanding as knowledge and Kohlbergian progress through, particularly, the 5 th and
6th stages.
II. The role of psychosocial and cognitive science in theories of moral development
A moment’s pause may be necessary here to acknowledge the role that cognitive
science and psychosocial concepts are playing in our investigation of moral
development. There is certainly no consensus within the field of normative ethics, or
moral theory more broadly, about what degree of involvement on the part of cognitive
science is appropriate. This is a debate that most directly dates back to G.E. Moore’s
1903 definition of the “naturalistic fallacy,” which is the fallacy of confusing what ought to
be done with what is or can be done. In the contemporary environment of ethical theory
this criminalization of naturalistic ethics, as well as the rigid distinction between “is” and
“ought” that it depends upon, is not nearly as fashionable as it was in the wake of
Moore, and many moral philosophers recognize the important role that descriptive
science plays when it comes to normative ethics. Owen Flanagan has influentially
submitted a naturalistic rule for ethicists: “Make sure when constructing a moral theory
or projecting a moral ideal that the character, decision processing, and behavior
prescribed are possible, or are perceived to be possible, for creatures like us.”
Taking this principle as a starting point, there is still significant debate about the
degree to which moral theory should be guided by, say, the psychosocial theories of
Kohlberg. Virginia Held revives Moore’s is/ought distinction by framing this problem as
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a struggle between the ultimately incompatible agendas of explanation (science) on one
hand and recommendation (ethics) on the other, stating that ethics, even naturalistically
construed, must limit the influence of psychology or sociology on moral theory or risk
“[letting] the agenda be set by those who have little, or only marginal, interest in ethics.”5
She goes on to further stress the purely auxiliary role of cognitive science to ethics
stating, “It is the task of ethics to answer questions about what we ought to do and what
has value. Knowledge about how we came to have the views we do can certainly be
helpful, but it can never itself answer moral questions.”6
At this point, however, it might be helpful to remember that ours is a campaign
to maximize the moral development of students at Drake, and our approach is
necessarily dependant upon describing the process of moral development, as well as
understanding what may or may not be possible within that process. Mark L. Johnson
voices similar concerns, arguing in opposition to Held that “our morality is a human
morality, one that must work for people who understand, and think, and act as we do.
Consequently, if moral theory is to be more than a meaningless exploration of utopian
ideals, it must be grounded in human psychology.” 7 We are taking this same approach
to the issue of moral development, which means that, along with Johnson, we are not
asking cognitive science alone to “answer moral questions,” as Held objects, but rather
using the findings of cognitive science and psychology to help guide our approach. In
contrast to Held’s vision of competing agendas, our project remains committed to an
ethical agenda by providing morally-grounded recommendations designed to maximize
moral development. It should be clear at this point that understanding descriptively how
5
Virginia Held, 1996: 73.
Held, 1996: 83.
7 Mark Johnson, 1996: 63.
6
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moral development actually occurs, as Kohlberg attempts to do, neither precludes nor
diminishes the normative aims of our approach. To reiterate the importance of
descriptive knowledge in our approach, we further appeal to Johnson’s warning:
“Without knowledge of this sort, we are condemned to either a fool’s or
a tyrant’s morality. We will be fools insofar as we make stupid mistakes
because we lack knowledge of the mind, motivation, meaning,
communication, and so forth. Or we will suffer the tyrannical morality of
absolute standards that we impose on ourselves and others, without
any attention to whether people could actually live up to such
standards…”8
We could extend this idea of a fool’s or tyrant’s morality to the issue of moral
development at Drake: we certainly don’t want to foolishly misunderstanding how we
can effectively facilitate moral development, nor do we want to tyrannically subject
students to paths of development that exceed their capacities.
If the above discussion of Kohlberg and others is not proof enough of the value
of descriptive science to our ends, another example specifically from cognitive science
might be useful. Paul Churchland offers a theory of moral learning and reasoning called
“moral network theory,” which draws heavily upon cognitive science. Moral network
theory states that “Children learn to recognize certain prototypical kinds of social
situations, and they learn to produce or avoid the behaviors prototypically required or
prohibited in each.”9 This learning follows from a network of connections in the mind
that develop similarly to the way we think of artificial intelligence developing—that is,
through an accumulation of trial-and-error responses and resulting compensation.
Owen Flanagan makes the point of recognizing that the resulting moral judgments, e.g.
‘I shouldn’t lie in this situation,’ are qualitatively similar to discriminative judgments such
8
9
Johnson, 1996: 49.
Paul Churchland 1989: 299.
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as “it looks like rain,” or “that peach is not ripe yet.”10 Under this process, the agent
builds on moral experience to develop a framework of action based on the recognition
of prototypes, which proceeds until moral ambiguity (i.e. cognitive dissonance) arises, at
which point trial-and-error and reflection again occur, resulting in prototype adjustment
and, hopefully, greater moral sophistication.
Regardless of whether or not we align ourselves with Churchland’s idea of the
moral mind, the implications of such a theory on a project concerning moral
development are undeniable. Committing to such an image of the mind would force us
to consider that moral development occurs through dynamic experience as opposed to
inert or abstract study, which of course would subsequently prompt us to scrutinize
notions of moral learning that seem prevalent at Drake and elsewhere, and so on. Our
own approach to the issue of moral development does take into account such concerns
without fully committing to Churchland’s moral network theory, but the important point is
that the findings of cognitive science and psychology deserve our attention when it
comes to issues of moral development, as well as moral theory more broadly construed,
and are certainly important when addressing real recommendations about how to better
facilitate moral development at Drake.
III. From cognitive elements to metacognition
At this point we have significant psychosocial literature demonstrating that
higher-order reasoning is requisite to moral proficiency, and it is with respect to these
issues that we tailor the structure of our capstone sequence, as well as offer
suggestions regarding the dialectical processes professors should facilitate within these
10
Owen Flanagan, 1996: 28.
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classes. Specifically, we do not believe that the curriculum actively promotes the
phenomenon of cognitive dissonance in its coursework; this valuable personal
experience is even more markedly lacking in some of the courses which are approved
as counting towards the Ethics AOI. Also, we feel that our university as a collective
whole does not substantially appreciate the pervasive nature of moral issues, and the
importance of continual self-reflection to achieve a more meaningful life. We come to
this realization through our own experiences; noting the benign neglect between
specialized departments in our university, and the extent to which individual academic
experiences are fragmented according to what major one pursues. As we noted these
issues, we also took into account the dramatic potential for improvement. It is with
respect to these experiences that we offer our conception of Drake’s enhanced focus on
ethics and teaching morality.
David Moshman’s article, entitled, “Liberal Education: Intellectual Freedom for
Intellectual Development”, brings the tools of philosophy (specifically, epistemology and
theory of mind) to bear on the problem of making individuals more morally astute.
Fostering explicit understanding of what knowledge is, and the justifiability of both
knowledge claims and reasoning used to attain knowledge is the proper realm of
epistemology. Moshman views our progress as active epistemic transformations, which
we, as moral agents, participate in and create. It follows the form: objectivist 
subjectivist  rationalist.11
Objectivists see truth as unproblematic, and in their world, true beliefs can be
distinguished from false ones purely on the basis of logic and evidence. This bears
remarkable similarity to the thought processes apparent in the 4 th level of Kohlbergian
11
David Moshman, 1994.
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cognition, whereby one arrives at the “true” answer by virtue of a law and order
algorithm. It is notable to mention here that developmental psychologists have
established a general consensus that the majority of undergraduate students come to
college functioning at this level.
Somewhere down the line, they realize that reasons are relative to individual
perspectives (i.e., justification ultimately has a cultural-historical basis), and thus some
differences on issues cannot be resolved by simply applying logic. They then become
subjectivists, and realize that facts are extensions of our theoretical conceptual
apparatus (determined by culture), and perspectives are neither true nor false, because
they are appropriately subjective. Agents eventually establish discord in this level,
because it cannot reliably prescribe any course of action as being epistemically superior
in its justification.
Thus, the more sophisticated realm of rationalism is born, which views criteria
as neither absolute nor arbitrary. They realize within this rationalist realm, that there
may be good reasons to adopt some beliefs over others, even if they cannot be proven
true or false, and the fact that some knowledge cannot be fully justified is not grounds
for subjectivism or naïve relativism, much the same as the existence of a few
established truths doesn’t necessitate an objectivist outlook. He terms this reflective
knowledge about the nature and justifiability of knowledge, and views it as a more
sophisticated form of metacognition. Reflection, coordination, and social and peer
interaction, according to Moshman, are three absolutely essential components to
attaining this level of metacognition, and to keep its operation in ideal form.
Moshman defines metacognition as knowledge about cognition itself, and
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awareness of the control one exerts over his own cognitive processes. For example, in
the interpretation of a painting this would be the recognition that reading some cues as
dominant over others is an assumption, and will lead to conclusion 1, whereas the
emphasis of other cues will lead to conclusion 2. The status of being metacognitive,
then, carries with it a certain achievement in terms of a level of conceptual
understanding of the nature of knowledge (preferably tentative), and the justification of
both the propositional knowledge itself, as well as the reasoning used to achieve that
knowledge claim.
To clarify his definition of what metacognition is, he uses the example of
someone who employs a basic disjunctive inference of the form P v Q (P or Q),
~P
(not P), therefore Q. The person has this tool, but it may not be readily apparent to her
that it was used to achieve the conclusion at hand. Thus, the moral agent at this level,
when facing a moral dilemma, is not aware of her epistemological commitments in
approaching the problem, and has not coupled her attempts to solve this problem with
enough sophistication and creativity to recognize that there may be other, more
appropriate ways to solve the problem or to recognize the relationship between P and
Q.
To take this further, and to ultimately uncover the relatedness of this concept to
our project, we can imagine that someone operating at a higher Kohlbergian stage can
deliberately apply one amongst many schemas with the ultimate purpose of reaching a
justifiable conclusion. We think that learning to be deliberate in applying schemas to
situations with the ultimate knowledge that one is seeking an appropriate justification for
whatever conclusion may follow is one step closer to achieving the types of cognition
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characteristic to Kohlberg’s higher stages. Such an outcome would be facilitated by the
type of structure we suggest for the liberal arts capstone sequence of classes. In our
program, the student, as a sophomore, acquires skills in part by virtue of having them
modeled and used by the senior facilitators in the class. The student then uses those
skills in the context of independent scholarly work during his junior year, which will,
ideally, sharpen his acuity in taking approaches to solving problems, as well as foster a
more nuanced understanding of knowledge, biases, and the true meaning of
collaborative, interdisciplinary work. Our group certainly sees a problem with regard to
how much importance moral issues and the development of moral reasoning are given,
and we have identified that deficiency as a student lacking an holistic understanding of
ethical considerations: of the pervasiveness of moral considerations across the many
facets of their lives. By participating in collaborative, independent academic work,
students in our program will necessarily confront views opposed to their own, and will
have to apply the tools that they have learned through their sophomore year to come to
a sophisticated realization of what knowledge is, and how different patterns of
justification can be used to arrive at similar (or very different) conclusions.
This outlook clearly highlights the importance of diversity, because peer
interaction serves a special role in fostering these processes, which include cognitive
dissonance. Alternative or challenging views within the liberal arts capstone sequence
come from neither a superior, nor an inferior, but from an equal- another Drake student,
which should compel someone taking the class to at least seriously consider them. The
crucial step here is to coordinate another’s view with one’s own, and peer interaction
serves an especially integral role when understood in this respect. Most importantly,
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Moshman insists that these processes of reflection, coordination and social interaction
are not simply phenomena imposed upon a passive developing agent, but rather must
be the free actions of an active developing agent. It is in this respect that our curricular
suggestions, from the freshman through senior years, gains further strength in providing
the requisite impetus for self-reflection, metacognitive development, and the processes
which lead a student to define for themselves what morality and a meaningful life truly
are.
IV.
The link between higher cognitive functioning and higher moral functioning
What these considerations warrant is an investigation into whether or not there is
a necessary connection between having these Kohlbergian cognitive characteristics
and actually operating at higher, more morally sophisticated levels. To illustrate the
reciprocity between the cognitive/epistemological realm and moral proficiency, we shall
elaborate on the results of a remarkable study. Leicester and Pierce provide promising
evidence that an academic program which incorporates metacognitive aspects to its
curriculum can dramatically alter the ways in which students look at their lives and draw
meaning from the events that take place in their world each day.
In “Cognitive Development, Self-Knowledge, and Moral Education”12, Leicester
and Pierce set out to articulate a conception of lifelong moral education that involves the
unique element of fostering the requisite cognitive capacities for advanced moral
deliberation. The authors used two classes: one called Open Studies, and the other,
Labor Relations. The level of self-reflection promoted in the adults taking these classes
is something worthy of consideration when we look at what approach we want to take.
12
Leicester and Pierce, 1997.
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In one case, a 47 year old union official felt, after exposure to the “liberal”
education”, that he had a better understanding of people’s difficulties, and had changed
his own working habits. Rearranging was an understatement: this individual explained
how he began to reflect on the effect of his actions on others in ways he hadn’t before,
started spending more time with his family, increased his awareness of colleagues’
roles, and changed the infrastructure of his workplace so that his workers’ would feel
more comfortable bringing up labor disputes and issues with him. To our group, this is a
clear example, regardless of extent or degree, of the development of empathy, or at the
very least, of an empathetic perspective.
Another example was a woman in her mid-30s, who, at the start of the study,
declared herself a person who could not identify with the feminist ideology because of
her strong willed nature, and believed that feminists cannot look at their own lack of
ambition and weak will. Through the course, she was forced to take “pro-feminism”
stances, and step into the shoes of someone who embraces a feminist ideology. This
subject stated at the end of taking the “liberal” courses, that she had not realized how
some women feel about societal norms, and that she even reflected on her own
behavior in certain situations. Amazingly, she said that when entertaining a client, she
would dress to impress, including makeup, but when only men were around, as in her
job, she would dress rather modestly.
Evidently, the type of approach explicated in this article has enabled people to
look at issues in a wider context: perhaps there is reason to suspect that certain
elements of it, at the very least, would aid us in our goals to make Drake students more
moral individuals, both during and following their undergraduate experiences. The
21
element worthy of consideration here is the academic and personal psychological rigor
of this course. What it facilitated was not simply an academic analysis of one ethical
stance versus another, but rather the acquisition of tools to think with: an understanding
that one action can have multiple consequences, and to recognize the multiplicity of
approaches to a problem or moral dilemma. This was a liberal arts course which
embraced the true essence of “liberal arts”- the demand of each student to step outside
their conventional perspectives stood independent of the student’s background or area
of expertise. We believe that the remarkable personal testimonies of students following
Leicester’s course sequence substantiate our curricular suggestions.
It is partially in this respect that we believe to have found an important
educational target: we can foster a critical reflection within a student as he/she
progresses from sophomore to senior year, which will involve the assessing the validity
of his/her own cultural-historical “baggage”, and promote more sophisticated
perspectives in solving problems. The basic approach that we see crystallizing from this
article is one in which we challenge individual students to examine their beliefs by
confronting them with perspectives and norms which are quite different from the ones
they are already accustomed to. Our proposed liberal arts capstone sequence is highly
conducive to this process by virtue of it being interdisciplinary and modeling skills within
the metaethical realm. In a sense, we’re not doing anything drastically different than
what everybody probably agrees is a good thing to do: have more moral people
graduate from our school. Additionally, we believe our approach strikes closer to what
our university, in its mission statement and explication, cites as collaborative and
interdisciplinary work. We believe that some aspects of the curricular structure at Drake
22
are not used to their full potential, and if suggestions analogous to ours were properly
adopted, we could see substantial yield of the type of powerful impact we are looking for
within an individual student.
What our proposed curricular emphases target is how to ideally make sense of
what we experience. This is very highly associated with how we develop moral
proficiency, and our access to the higher levels of moral and intellectual cognition, and
ultimately what scholars refer to as “making meaning”. We employ templates of
categories, concepts, values, algorithms of truth, and interpretive “lenses” through which
we are given access to and rapidly process whatever we perceive. The higher forms of
learning—those specifically conducive to the 6th level, or post-formal thinking, for
example—come from when a dissonant experience causes us to reflect critically on our
conceptual apparatus and critically scrutinize its presuppositions. Particularly, the
authors note the dramatic impact of re-evaluating the cultural-historical elements of our
conceptual apparatus. This process allows us to change our evaluative criteria and
conceptual framework so as to integrate the new experience with previous experience.
The evidence, then, suggests that not only are the circumstances of cognitive
development at Drake of crucial concern when it comes to the higher-order moral
functioning of future graduates, but also that the pervasive importance of critical, higherorder moral functioning is being desperately underrepresented at Drake. Our above
discussion of the cognitive aspect of moral development necessitates the recognition
that every faculty we wish to develop at Drake, whether cognitive, non-cognitive or
professional, has moral implications and can have a substantial effect on the moral
development of students. The importance of metacognition, for example, shows us that
23
being critical of what are typically seen as non-moral cognitive functions has significant
implications on moral development. Furthermore, the recognition of the pervasive
importance of morality means that moral development cannot be relegated to a single
AOI, a specific major, or a handful of classes. The evidence shows that every major
and every class at Drake should be understood as an opportunity for students to
develop the self-reflective, metacognitive capacities that are vital to moral development.
If Drake has failed to recognize the pervasiveness of moral concerns or the
pervasiveness of opportunities for moral development, then the goal of helping students
become ethically critical agents with meaningful moral lives is lost.
EMOTIONS AND NON-COGNITIVE ELEMENTS IN MORAL UNDERSTANDING
I. Emotional Development and Morality
“An education is truly ‘fitted for freedom’ only if it is such as to produce
free citizens, citizens who are free not because of wealth or birth, but
because they can call their minds their own…. They have ownership of
their own thought and speech, and this imparts to them a dignity that is far
beyond the outer dignity of class and rank.” 13
Martha Nussbaum
In addition to focusing on the cultivation of morality, the problem of immorality in
college students is one that ought to be addressed. Immorality can occur on many
levels. The recent events at Virginia Tech are an example of an extreme case that may
have been the result of smaller acts of immorality. In light of this event, it is important to
take notice of the smaller lapses in judgment that lead to such things as ostracizing
peers or cheating on exams. Small actions that may seem insignificant can have a
particularly large affect to the overall well being of students if ignored. The proposed
13
Martha Nussbaum, 1997: 293.
24
changes to Drake’s first year experience will help to alleviate this problem by addressing
the area of emotional development, an area that is often overlooked in the education of
college age students. Why should we examine emotional development? Emotions are
an important part of all human experience. Even if it were ideal to divorce emotion from
activities of education, work and the overall decision making process it would be nearly
impossible for most people to accomplish. Emotions are a pervasive part of the human
experience. As a natural component of life emotions can be used as indicators of what
is right and wrong and facilitate deeper understanding of situations through reflection.
While there are many different ways to view emotions most people can recognize
when they are experiencing an emotion and the emotions others may be experiencing.
In her book Hiding From Humanity, Martha Nussbaum says that emotions involve
appraisals and evaluations of the object of the emotion. In other words emotions are felt
physically, on a cognitive level consciously and potentially unconsciously but the
reasons for an emotion are always factors external to an individual. It is only in the
appraisals of an object that we can evaluate the reasonableness of our emotions and
whether or not they should be used to judge a situation.
To truly mold well rounded people, it is important to consider how to educate
emotions. In The Education of Feelings and Emotion, Dunlop argues that the education
of emotions is not an inescapably moral matter and while this may be true it does not
hinder the fact that the education of emotions can aid in moral matters. Dunlop puts
forth that the cognition of emotions involves reference to objects as well. Inappropriate
responses of emotions can be difficult to change. He explains emotional development
as such that experience must be a part of changing emotional responses. Someone
25
who has learned to fear a mouse can not simply be told the mouse is harmless they
must have an experience of the harmless mouse to counterbalance the cognitive
problems of an unreasonable emotional reaction14.
The way in which emotion affects morality can be simple. People who are in a
better mood are more likely to treat others better and the reverse is also true. By
understanding that our actions are affected by emotions and producing situations where
it is possible to control and foster positive emotional experiences it is highly likely that
the end result will be action that can be defined as more moral. Even situations that
seem morally mundane like displaying incivility towards others can create situations in
which a person is more likely to harm another whereas treating others with respect will
lead to greater instances of kindness toward others.15 This will also help to foster a
sense of well-being within individuals.
In fostering emotional development it is not then only about creating emotionally
accepting environments but also teaching, likely through example, ways in which to
properly use and understand our own emotions. “We can point out that someone’s
emotions rest on beliefs that are true or false, and (a separate point) reasonable or
unreasonable. Furthermore, what we can now see is that such judgments can be made
not only about the factual component of the emotion-beliefs, but about their evaluative
or appraisal component as well.”16 It is important that college teaches students to
evaluate and question their environment on a regular basis.
14
Francis Dunlop, 1984: 97.
Twenge et al. (2001) is a study of rejection and emotional response. To see whether or not the mood
created by a negative experience would heighten the likelihood of doing harm to another person. The
results showed that a person who is treated poorly and thereby feels upset is more likely to want to cause
harm to another person, conversely someone who is treated well and in a better mood is more likely to be
compassionate and to regulate negative behavior.
16 Nussbaum 2004: 31.
15
26
Many of the problems that can be found in college age students today can be
linked to the values of society. It is American culture that promotes the idea of wealth
and importance of material possessions. College as an enriching experience should
teach students to some extent the value of emotional experience and how to enrich their
lives through intrinsically valuable pursuits rather than simply lucrative pursuits.
In Cultivating Humanity, Nussbaum argues that there is a trend toward vocational
studies that undermines liberal education by cutting humanities studies and this
undermines students’ abilities for reflection and critical thinking. This in turn undermines
emotional development and reflection, destroying critical reasoning and imagination.
Dunlop says that feelings promote a deeper understanding. Emotions allow for the
appreciation of human life and make knowledge more then a means end relationship,
and are something that can be pursued for intrinsic value beyond the classroom to
enrich lives.
In a vocationally oriented setting or one that simply tries to teach without truly
emphasizing contribution and critical thinking, the professors and administration of a
school are not actively developing emotional skills. There is a lack of emotional interest
between the three groups of students, administrators and professors in most college
experiences. A professor or administrator has the responsibility to show students how to
behave and actively use their power to involve others in the academic process. Thereby
showing students how to interact in a moral way with others in situations where they
may find themselves in a position of power. “Thus the ‘mood’ or ‘atmosphere’ of the
school, both as a physical environment and an administrative and teaching community
whose ‘real’ goals give it a particular kind of feeling-quality, are bound to affect
27
emotional and other aspects of education.”17 Without realizing it a lack of interest in a
student or a negative interest in a student can cause negative emotions. Thus reflection
and understanding of how and why people feel as they do is important to the well-being
of all.
Another problem currently facing emotional development toward moral behavior
at college is the separation of disciplines. In many ways interdisciplinary work is
fostered but not enough to create well-rounded individuals. The current curricular
structure allows for many people to bypass important learning experiences. Learning
from different fields creates new ways to look at situations and promotes questioning of
ideas that may lead to innovation. This is important to emotional moral development
because by learning across curricular fields students will learn different ways to
question that may transfer into questioning of themselves, the perception of the truth
and the importance of their emotions.
Many of these issues will be addressed by the proposed changes to Drake’s core
curriculum. The peer led classes will be significantly helpful in cultivating the well-being
of students. The new structure to the classes integrates different types of power
relationships that will help students to learn responsibility to others. The interdisciplinary
aspect will also help students to broaden their minds. By learning about different areas
students may find that there is something that they would like to study simply because
they enjoy it. By giving the students more power over what they learn the process helps
to detract from societies’ emphasis on occupational studies. Though it is not outlined in
the four year plan hopefully working with others in such a close manner to receive their
grade students will become aware of how their actions can affect others. A student
17
Dunlop, 1984: 111.
28
working in a diverse group on a project they enjoy is more likely to realize the value
other have to contribute and work to make people feel accepted.
II. Creativity and Moral Imagination
When dealing with moral development, there is more to the equation than the
cognitive and non-cognitive aspects of moral reasoning and emotion. Moral imagination
plays an important role in the sophisticated functioning of a moral agent, and it is a vital
component in the process of moral development. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments,
Adam Smith writes:
As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no
idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we
ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though our brother is on the rack, as
long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he
suffers…It is by the imagination only that we place ourselves in his situation.18
This passage describes the important and often overlooked aspect of moral
imagination. In order to develop a sophisticated ability to reason, creativity in ethical
thought must be encouraged. Thus, in order to promote moral development amongst
Drake University students, moral imagination needs to be nurtured.
Moral imagination is, simply put, the use of imagination in deliberating on a moral
situation—“an ability to imaginatively discern various possibilities for acting in a given
situation and to envision the potential help and harm that are likely to result from a given
action.”19 Donald Oliver and Mary Jo Bane, in their article entitled “Moral Education – Is
Reasoning Enough?” argue that we need more than rational reflection and discussion to
develop a sophisticated ethical life; we must engage ourselves with a significant depth
18
19
Smith, 1751.
Johnson, 1993.
29
of experience in non-cognitive activities. Adam Smith was not the only philosopher to
note the importance of imagination; as E.J. Furlong notes, both Berkeley and Hume
noted the importance of imagination in fostering quality moral choices. 20 This includes
using imagination as a tool for explorative encounters between proposed thought and
action.
So, how ought we to provoke moral imagination? Aesthetic education is one
particular method of provoking imagination. Arthur Newman notes that the connection
between art and imagination has been long recognized;21 John Dewey notes it in his
work,22 and Irving Kaufman writes, "Art may provide the basis of a joining of moral and
aesthetic community interests, for a common good."23
When we look at something aesthetically stimulating, we resist the potential urge
to criticize and analyze it and instead let the "sensations which...emanate from the
object [flow] unencumbered into our consciousness."24 Dewey writes in a particularly
vivid passage that "the moral function of art itself is to remove prejudice, do away with
the scales that keep the eye from seeing, tear away the views due to wont or custom,
perfect the power to perceive."25 Art is special for the way it allows us to challenge our
preconceptions and view things from a fresh perspective. To the extent that this is a
desirable part of moral deliberation, it makes sense to say that our search for solutions
in a moral situation has a "quasi-aesthetic" nature. "Curriculum designers engaged in
planning learning experiences for moral development might do well to infuse the
20
Furlong, 1961.
Newman, 1980: 94.
22 ibid. 95.
23 John Dewey, 1934: 325.
24 Newman, 1986: 96.
25 Diffey, 1975
21
30
curriculum with opportunities for student involvement in aesthetic experiencing"
Newman writes.26 It is not just visual art which enhances imaginative learning, however;
literature as well has an important part. The examination of literary texts, as T.J. Diffey
notes, is a useful method in moral development.27 Fairy tales and novels, for example,
both offer a depth for moral investigation and allow the imagination to propose action in
response to difficulties and dilemmas. David Swanger, in the article "Imagination and
Morality," looks at "Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain as an excellent example of a book
that provokes the ethical imagination toward what action should be taken, for example 28.
The development of moral education by way of aesthetics is one that cannot be
taken lightly as a quaint and curious method—it offers the student a serious but often
overlooked perspective that is radically different than the usual discursive methods.
While the Artistic Experience AOI provides an introduction to aesthetic investigations,
the compartmentalizing of art education as "something to get out of the way" for many
majors leads to a personal discrediting of its benefits, and a logical solution would be to
seek to expand on artistic experience beyond AOI classes. The introduction of
information through an atypical medium, such as art compared to academic texts, or
novels as opposed to technical works, provides a method of reinforcing the ideals and
provoking the imagination in ways that may otherwise not be possible. Without a doubt,
the DULACS proposal provides myriad opportunities for the integration of this aesthetic
education.
Beyond the possibilities of aesthetic education, the development of moral
imagination is something that needs to be supported at every level of the university.
26
Newman, 1980: 86.
Diffey, 1975.
28 Swanger, 1986.
27
31
One issue regarding moral imagination that needs particular attention is the
development of moral empowerment. John M. Doris provides a persuasive argument
for the importance of developing moral empowerment. His interpretations of the
psychology experiments of Stanley Milgram and those of Latané and Darley emphasize
how, in each experiment, subjects acted in profoundly immoral ways because the
respective influence of authority and situational circumstances overrode their own sense
of moral duty.29 Because the simple authority of the test administrator (in the Milgram
experiment) or a room full of complacent peers (in the Latané and Darley experiment)
was enough to cause test subjects to act immorally, these experiments suggest that a
sense of moral empowerment may be the missing link in the translation of sound moral
reasoning to actual moral behavior.
This issue of moral empowerment is, to a large extent, rooted in the development
of moral imagination. As we stated earlier, moral imagination is a tool of moral
deliberation, and one that is particularly useful in exploring the encounter between
proposed thought and action. Getting students to exercise and develop moral
imagination, especially without heavy restriction from authoritarian figures, is therefore
vital in establishing the sense of moral empowerment that is needed. Incoming
freshman may especially exhibit this need, as the majority of freshmen students have
recently left home before arriving at college, and have likely lived under the thumb of
various authorities for most of their lives. It may therefore be difficult for freshman
students to practically apply the morals and beliefs they hold because they are
accustomed to authority telling them what is right and wrong. This difficulty extends to
29
Doris, 2002: 32-61.
32
the exercise of moral imagination, where an unempowered subject may feel dependent
upon an authority to guide him or her through processes of moral deliberation.
Currently, college may fail to adequately address this problem because
professors may immediately take the place of previous authority figures in the moral
lives of students. If we can create an environment in the classroom where students can
exercise their moral imaginations without worrying about depending upon an authority
figure, students may be able to better develop capacities of moral imagination and a
sense of moral empowerment.
This is not to suggest that the traditional student-
professor relationship should be discarded, or that it is a uniformly harmful relationship,
but rather that students deserve greater opportunities to exercise moral imagination in
ways that will nourish moral empowerment.
To this end, discussion-based classes are obviously preferable for many
reasons. Simply taking notes on a lecture or power point presentation or regurgitating
information on tests is not likely to encourage free thinking, creativity, moral
empowerment, or the development and exercise of moral imagination. If creativity and
imagination are vital to moral deliberation, it may be wise to scrutinize the impact that
such classes are having on the moral development of students. The DULACS proposal,
in contrast, provides new ways for students to develop moral imagination.
The
sophomore year component is especially helpful for the way it replaces the authority
figure of the professor with that of senior mentors.
This encourages moral
empowerment both through the removal of some of the dependence on authority in
moral deliberation and through the modeling of active moral agency and moral power
relationships by the senior mentors. Furthermore, the entire DULACS structure would
33
allow for a more democratic classroom where students could participate in decisions
about fairness, power relationships, grading, instructional issues, curricular issues, and
how the class will be run.
Democratic decision-making of course demands the
consideration and reconciliation of varied perspectives, and it allows students to make
moral decisions in their own lives, similar to role-playing but with real consequences.
Thus, students enrolled in this new system would be involved in experiential ethics, with
the courses stimulating the imaginative, non-cognitive components of moral reasoning.
In a sense the courses would become the laboratory for making ethics into the lived
experience that Piaget said is central to the acquisition of human values. 30 Along the
way, the vital elements of moral imagination and empowerment would be fostered
through opportunities that current curricular structures simply cannot provide.
ROLES AND RELATIONSHIPS
Popular trends in higher education seem to reflect a dichotomy between the
student as a learner and the student as an individual. In academic settings both at
Drake and college campuses across the country, students sit in classrooms led by
professors who know little about their students and who are separated from the reality
of what being a college student truly entails. In these classrooms, students are
oftentimes treated as an identification number on a class roster rather than a whole
person. Similarly, students see their professors as authoritative conveyers of facts
rather than partners in a quest seeking knowledge. This passive approach to learning
facilitates little discussion and with that, fosters few connections with classmates and
30
Callahan, 117: 1980.
34
professors. This section seeks to explore alternatives to this approach to education, and
aims to redefine roles present within the classroom. In doing so, our goal is to explain
why this development of relationships will allow the fulfillment of various components of
the Drake Mission statement.
I. Student-Professor Relationships
In his article titled, “Moral Education as Pedagogy of Alterity,” Pedro Orrega Ruiz
argues that today’s approach to higher education is too focused on efficiency and
professionalism. Such an approach to teaching has “reduced the person merely to
intelligence of the development of skills and abilities, forgetting…that the head has its
root in the heart.”31 Colleges and universities are concerned with fostering professional
and academic development across a wide range of disciplines. This process oftentimes
involves a one-sided exchange of information – the teacher offers information and the
learner absorbers their teacher’s knowledge. Such a pattern reflects an obvious power
structure in which one individual, the teacher, knows and the other, the student, does
not.
Within this almost mechanical exchange and absorption of information, the
individuality of the learner gets lost. In addition, this schema focuses solely on
intellectual and professional development, and lacks the influence of emotional and
experiential learning. What is lacking in this education equation is genuine concern on
the professor’s behalf for a more holistic development within their students. Holistic
development could be used to describe many facets of student development. For
instance, being concerned about the student as a whole individual, not just a body that
31
Pedro Orrega Ruiz, 2004: 273.
35
occupies a classroom, would involve recognizing the students’ potentiality and their
needs to flourish as human beings. Such an understanding highlights the existence of
students’ desires and dreams. This way of understanding a student forces the professor
to see their students as individuals, rather than numbers on a roster.
This current approach to education, which is grounded solely in professional and
academic development, is not adequate for various reasons. Ruiz writes that the
“dominant use of technological reason in education converts our students into efficient,
specialized machines.”32 In following this approach and implementing it within the
classroom, Ruiz argues that many networks of relationships cannot be described and
utilized, including intersubjectivity, communication, and ethics33. Overall, this approach
proves unsatisfactory because it involves the development of the student in only one
sphere.
Rather than thinking about and carrying out student-teacher relationships on a
purely technical or professional level, professors need to begin thinking of these
relationships as moral relationships. This development of a moral relationship will occur
when the professor begins to see her students as a person who has intrinsic value and
“not just as a learner of knowledge and competencies.”34 Instead of thinking about
teaching as the transmission of knowledge between a teacher and a student, thinking of
student-professor relationships as moral relationships involves the exchange of
knowledge “between two individuals, one of whom knows that he is responsible for the
other, obliged to give answers in their situation of alterity.” 35 This way of thinking about
32
ibid. 272.
ibid. 272.
34 ibid. 275.
35 ibid. 274.
33
36
student-professor relationships recognizes the importance of both parties, and facilitates
a two-way exchange of information. Not only does the student learn from their
professor, but the professor must be willing to learn from their students. This process
involves the lowering of defensive walls, and also calls for a willingness to listen and
reflect. Through the development of a moral relationship between the student and the
professor, both parties will begin to feel a sense of responsibility towards the other.
Professors will feel a genuine concern for their students, both in matters inside and
outside of the classroom, and students will begin to take a more active role in their
education and feel more of an obligation to develop a relationship with their professor.
Because this way of thinking about education is dependent upon the other rather than
the individual, this will lead to the further development of listening capabilities and the
ability to express oneself in open dialogue. These abilities will in turn lead to an
emphasis on the values of empathy and sympathy within relationships. Overall, this way
of thinking about teaching differs rather drastically from the current model of
professional and academic development.
II. Student-Student Relationships
The university experience is not just about strengthening students’ intellectual
abilities, it is also a very important time to build interpersonal skills. Both inside and
outside of the classroom, students are immersed in an atmosphere unique to any other
experienced during their lifetime. They both live and learn in the same community,
sharing their residential and cognitive space with many others their own age. However,
throughout their tenure at school, they often find that the structure of university forces
37
them to keep these two realms separate. Their academic lives are structured by
teachers who, as aforementioned, view efficiency in knowledge transmission as their
chief role in the students’ lives. Their residential lives are spent balancing the demands
of homework, roommates, and recreation, and they do not see their fellow dorm-mates
so much as fellow students but rather as friends.
This relationship structure serves a certain purpose in that students do not have
to take responsibility for their own education. Teachers are there to tell them what they
should do inside the classroom, while residence assistants are there to tell them when
they break a rule outside of the classroom. Separating the two spheres and defining
behavior based on the invisible boundary of the classroom walls helps students to more
closely regulate what is often a very tumultuous time in their lives. However, it also limits
both the learning that they can accomplish as well as the power that they have to define
their own university experience.
Recent research in a movement known as “positive peer culture” can give
incredible insight to the value and proficiency of students’ abilities to do right to one
another when they are given the responsibility. Positive peer culture, which ironically
grew out of criminal justice system reform of juvenile detention centers, stresses that
students who are trusted to set rules, identify sources of conflict, and call one another
out on poor performance can improve remarkably in comparison to those who have
these things set for them by an authority figure. The goal of this is both self-realization,
that students recognize their own strengths in dealing with issues, and also selfregulation, that students act out of desire to help themselves and others rather than out
38
of coercion. Brendtro, Mitchell and McCall36 argue that a top-down system of rulemaking and power organization encourages “peer deviance training,” in which students
band together in support of their own deviant behavior and in rejection of the values
which staff members attempt to purvey. The situation that results is one in which
students not only learn nothing of ethical behavior or responsibility, they actually
strengthen the anti-social values which got them in trouble in the first place.
The dissimilarities between universities and juvenile detention facilities may
seem insurmountable enough at first blush to discourage further reflection upon the
benefits that positive peer culture practices would bring to Drake University. For one,
most students at Drake are here by choice, not by court disposition. But it is interesting
how in both scenarios, young people participate in educational activities with the same
individuals and in the same vicinity as the buildings in which they live and sleep. Staff
members provide the structure that is lacking in many other aspects of their life. They
are given assignments which are aimed at building skills which they did not previously
possess or possessed in a much lower faculty. They band together in support of their
own deviant behavior, from skipping class to underage drinking. They learn relatively
little about problem-solving or about taking their education into their own hands.
To overcome these difficulties, both Drake University and positive peer culture
advocates have devised missions and systems that value resiliency, collaboration, and
analytic skill. The implementation of these ideals, however, is where each system
differs, especially in regards to the power relationships fostered within the classroom
and the role of the students within these power relations. Positive peer culture differs in
that it places the power of the rule-making in the hands of the students who are most
36
Brendtro, Mitchell, and McCall, 2007.
39
affected by the rules. The goal is positive group interaction, and it is accomplished by
focusing the bulk of introductory period on group building. Vollmer37 states that initially,
the idea of relinquishing power to students might feel to staff members as if it will create
more conflict than would be present if they had full reign. However, by empowering
students to set their own rules together, educators are not only teaching interpersonal
skills, they are also helping the students to recognize their own potential. Positive peer
culture means harnessing the power of peer groups for the betterment of the whole
learning experience. Group members are expected to hold one another accountable if
any rules are broken. Community support comes in the form of problem-solving circles
that address each individuals’ needs and hassles in a way that supports everyone while
at the same time stressing responsibility38. In this way, they are pressuring each other to
strive for something better, and most importantly they are learning to do this selfsufficiently.
The most revolutionary thing about positive peer culture is that it fosters just that,
a culture. It is a way of seeing the student as a whole person, a person that is capable
of caring for themselves and others. Students are encouraged to form relationships of
care and help each other through problems stemming from a variety of sources from
class material to family conflict. The implications for this extend beyond academic
settings as classroom interaction “breaks the ice” for students to practice similar
responses in their personal lives. They learn to expect the best from themselves and
37
38
Vollmer, 2005: 178.
Heckenlaible-Gotto and Roggow, 2007: 221.
40
from others. Helping others is the “cool” norm to which every group member strives, and
they explore solutions together in order to best benefit each other as persons.39
For the purposes of our Liberal Arts Capstone proposal, positive peer culture will
be implemented on all levels of curriculum. During the freshman year, when professors
still act as leaders for the class, positive peer culture will be used much in the way that it
is in the correctional environment: professors will help students set goals for right
conduct, and will coach them in becoming independent researchers. During the
sophomore year, students will learn to model behavior after their senior student class
leaders as they learn that the learning skills they acquired during freshman year are
“cool” things to have as they mature as students. During junior year, students will have
to work together to devise a cohesive curricular plan. In the absence of a professor,
they will band together to perpetuate the environment created during their previous two
years. During senior year, students will be responsible for passing along all of these
skills to younger students. Seeing all of their work implemented in the classroom setting
will empower seniors not only to continue acting as stewards of learning to their
sophomore counterparts, but also give them hope for future endeavors. By this time,
students will have learned to harness positive peer culture in collaboration with each
other rather than relying on an outside, paternal force – such as a professor or
administrator – to tell them what to think and do.
This is not to say that professors under a positive peer culture model become
unnecessary or unimportant. On the contrary, they act as guides and coaches for
students who may see this type of interaction as counterintuitive. However, as Laursen
describes, the difference here is that they do not aim to “fix” children to meet some
39
Heckenlaible-Gotto and Roggow, 2007: 223; Laursen, 2007: 141-142.
41
arbitrary criteria that they have devised.40 Rather, they recognize the strengths that
youth already have, as well as the potential in the youth to set meaningful criteria to
solve problems themselves. The mission statement of Drake University states that
graduates, faculty, and staff should “understand that healthy relationships are built on
mutual respect and support of others’ personal well-being, learning and development”
(§1.B.1) and that graduates should “take responsibility for their own learning” (§2.A.1).
What better way to fulfill both of these criteria simultaneously than by fostering
classroom relationships based on a model of mutual respect and accountability.
Positive peer culture has changed the face of many juvenile detention facilities, in
both the ways that teachers treat residents as well as the way that residents treat
themselves and their peers. It recognizes that cognitive skills are important, but equally
of value are skills that we learn from those around us. What better way to encourage
right behavior than by utilizing a powerful force that already exists: the power of peer
groups. If it can work for 10-year-old adjudicated boys with mental diagnoses, why not
for Drake students?
III. Faculty/Faculty Communicational Relationships
Faculty/faculty communicational relationships help strengthen the academic
program and help model to students how to see issues in a variety of ways in and
outside the classroom.
By strengthening the communicational relationships among
faculty members, the university will grow stronger academically and morally.
It is imperative the faculty have open communication between themselves to
insure that the students at Drake University have a full and comprehensive education.
40
Laursen, 2007.
42
Professors not only need to communicate to other professors in their same department
but in other departments as well.
By having open communication between the
professors and letting students know professors are communicating, students are able
to observe and learn how to have mature conversations on topics where people might
not always agree and also to learn how to learn from different viewpoints.
Professors have different areas of expertise and, therefore, are able to teach
their knowledge to students. However, if students were able to see how a topic is
influenced by many different subjects, then students are able to see a more
comprehensive problem.
At Harvard University, a team-teaching approach is used
which exhibits such a procedure.
The team teaching works when professors from
different departments teach a course on one topic.
Each one teaching the class
teaches his or her topic of expertise on the subject. As students learn more about
different issues on the same topic, they begin to understand how complex issues can
become. “Students see how some problems are more easily solved by attacking them
from several angles. They also learn that professors sometimes disagree, but can put
aside those differences to reach a common goal.”41 Professor of Health Economics
Richard Frank, who participates in the program, had this to say about it. “It forces us to
be a university—it forces everybody to talk together. That has pushed us together to do
research and share students.”42
This class taught by the team-teaching approach is a year-long class so
professors are able to discuss the topic more in-depth.
Throughout the class, the
students hear from many different professors in the professors’ areas of expertise. The
41
42
Jennifer Powell, 1994.
ibid.
43
students observe how each professor’s knowledge connects to the topic. For example,
one class where the team-teaching approach is used at Harvard is Health Policy 2000.
As Powell writes, in this class:
“Students not only hear about different areas of health policy, they also
hear different perspectives on the same issue, such as smoking. A doctor
may consider smoking a problem because it harms people who work and
live with the smoker, but an economist becomes alarmed when smoking
reduces the work force or causes insurance rates to increase . . .”43
This type of team teaching helps show students the different issues involved in topics
and how to address these issues.
By observing how professors work and communicate together, students also
learn how to work and communicate with one another. “As scholars break down the
walls among their traditional fields of study, students learn the skills they will need to
survive in a world that needs them to work with people who have different opinions or
who see things from different angles.”44 Because students are learning the different
angles, they are also learning how to think in ways which can help them process moral
decisions.
In many moral decisions, a person has to figure out if it is first a moral problem,
what his or her moral beliefs are, apply moral reasoning to those beliefs, and then make
a moral judgment on how to act. This process can become very difficult sometimes if
the person has not already been introduced to a learning environment which teaches
how to reason through a conflict. When professors work and communicate together,
students see and reflect on this and are able to incorporate this process into their own
43
44
ibid.
ibid.
44
moral life experiences. Students are able to see and comprehend the complexity of an
issue and how to reasonably work through the problem.
In some cases, students never have or have very little exposure on how to
communicate with their peers on an intellectual level.
When professors are seen
working with their peers, students learn how to model this behavior. “Modeled actions
can serve as social prompts, such as when one emulates the behaviors of high-status
models to obtain approval from others.”45 Professors are at a higher status in the
students’ minds, and students want and are eager to learn from them. Therefore, it is
important that professors are modeling a behavior which will help the intellectual growth
of students.
When professors are seen working and communicating together, students learn
how to see and communicate; but most importantly, they are exposed to understanding
how complex issues can become and how, if issues are not considered from a variety of
angles, then a problem cannot be fully comprehended.
Very few problems people
encounter will be black and white, especially moral dilemmas.
Therefore, it is
imperative for Drake students to learn now how to see and dissect situations because
they need to know how to make the best choice they can, particularly when that
decision concerns morality.
The Drake Mission Statement states it will “provide an exceptional learning
environment” and “The Drake experience is distinguished by collaborative learning
among students, faculty, and staff . . . .” To insure that Drake fulfills an exceptional
learning environment, the faculty need to work together to make sure students are
learning through a variety of approaches which enhance and challenge them in an
45
David Schunk, 1987: 150.
45
academic manner.
Also, Drake’s mission states the experience is one of a
distinguished collaborative learning environment that includes faculty. When faculty are
seen working together routinely in and outside the classroom, students are able to
observe also how to work together in and out of the classroom.
Often the University focuses on the relationships between faculty and students,
but the relationships between the faculty members are just as important. Drake will
become a stronger educational university by building relationships between faculty
members; and students will prosper from observing strong, intellectual learning
relationships.
COMMUNITY
We have set our goal to be building a moral community on Drake’s campus. The
manner in which we pursue this goal depends greatly on what we take morality to be.
For this project we have not defined morality as simply acting the appropriate manner or
having the appropriate beliefs. Both of these definitions beg the question of whose
actions or beliefs are right. We acknowledge, even more we encourage and celebrate,
diversity. This includes a diversity of opinions when it comes to appropriate actions and
beliefs. What we hope to create, then, is a moral community based off of the capacity
for moral judgment.
We have analyzed the role of the curricular sequence, service learning, and the
Resident Assistant (RA). Through these varied avenues, Drake students will learn the
skills and judgment necessary to form moral relationships with the community. Our
understanding of community includes both the relationships within Drake University as
an institution and between Drake and the Des Moines area. The education of moral
46
individuals cannot be achieved without the development of a community in which
morality is nurtured. Drake students must be both recipients and promoters of this
philosophy.
I. Curriculum
The Drake University Liberal Arts Capstone Sequence (DULACS) will instill
sound moral judgment, which will become the basis for moral beliefs and moral actions,
through the process of moral education. According to philosopher Thomas Green, moral
education is the formation of conscience, the capacity for reflexive judgment based on
the acquisition of social norms which serve to govern individual conduct. Conscience
speaks in the voices of craft, membership, and sacrifice. We find all of these elements
present in DULACS.
To build a theory of moral education, we must begin with the understanding that
human beings are not fundamentally moral. Instead, we are first motivated by selfinterest. Creating a community requires an education that will supplant this “primacy of
prudence” with the conscience of sacrifice.
DULACS works beyond prudence because it does not directly involve a student’s
major. The classes are not seen as immediately useful to those students who simply
want to get a piece of paper at the end of four years. However, the sequence instills the
norm of interdisciplinary study. The classes are focused on a topic that students will find
rewarding despite not being immediately useful. They will learn to sacrifice their narrow
vision of education, and their ability to sail through college without encountering
diversity, to the interdisciplinary vision.
47
The interactions between students in the DULACS course will also assist in the
development of the conscience of sacrifice. By working in a group they will not be able
to use the same calculation of self-interest as they would in a seminar or lecture class.
Their success depends on the other students. They will have to sacrifice themselves in
some cases, and they will witness the sacrifice of others.
The conscience of sacrifice is based on the norm of duty. However, students will
only feel a duty toward a community that they embrace. The conscience of membership
brings an attachment between the individual and the group which allows the social
norms of that group to be acquired. The DULACS program gradually integrates students
into greater levels of responsibility for the community and the creation of common
interest with their peers. Education is not seen as a object of consumption, but an
activity which requires the collaboration of united members of a community.46
The other major voice of conscience for Green is craft. An important, though
often overlooked, part of morality is the ability to accomplish as goal with skill. The
conscience of craft aims at adopting standards of practice. It tells use to take pride in
work done well and shame in work done poorly. The emotions in this case are evidence
of a properly functioning conscience. They show us that we have acquired the
appropriate norms of conduct. As we develop, the conscience of craft gives us critical
judgment of our performance. A vital aspect of morality for Green is the ability to
conduct our actions with skill. The fullest knowledge of any craft is understanding its use
in a moral manner. We have discussed how morality must connect thought to action.
Having the right belief about a moral situation is not enough. We have to have the ability
not only to think with precision, but to act with precision as well. The academic setting of
46
For more, please turn to the discussion of Michael Strain on the following pages.
48
DULACS promotes the craft of scholarship. Students will gain the skill needed for highlevel intellectual pursuits, which includes the responsibility that accompanies them.
While these voices of conscience are being developed through the Liberal Arts
Capstone Sequence, a moral community will develop on Drake’s campus. We will
recognize this achievement not by witnessing the correct moral actions of all students,
or the correct moral beliefs. Students will not blindly follow the rules. Instead they will
be ready to critique the rules. They will exhibit the reflexive judgment that will constantly
evaluate the norms of the community, the norms they have acquired. They will also
develop a caring for the norms. Being right will matter, even if they don’t always know
what being right means. We hope that Drake students will not be satisfied with mere
compliance, but rather with critical judgment and demeanor regarding morality. The
voices of conscience make life more complicated, but they provide more resources for
solving moral dilemmas.
Michael Strain, in the article “Autonomy, Schools, and the Constitutive Role of
the Community,” contends that schools are currently organized as “administered
markets.” Drake is also run on many levels as a business. Students make purchase a
service from the university. In exchange for tuition, they are promised a degree at the
end of four years. In this context, moral values of the institution are not discussed as
long as the consumer has access and certain specified rights. Strain argues that the
market approach to education cuts off the institution from its community. He also
believes that this poses problems because communities are vital for both social
development and individual learning. While we (or maybe just me) like to think of
individuals as self-contained units, Strain believes, as past philosophers have, that
49
individuals are constitutively, not contingently, related to their community. What we call
autonomy, the severing of individuals from the community, actually diminishes freedom
by depriving the individual of its social base.
For Strain, all human institutions have a moral aspect because they must in the
end serve the good of humans. The community as a social institution “limits, shapes,
gives meaning and value to actions undertaken within them.”47 However, education has
sought to eliminate the community element. Academic achievement or failure is
regarded as an individual affair, and not as the potential result of social situations (Doris
would follow Strain’s critique at this point). Strain critiques this position by arguing that
communities simultaneously support individuals and derive benefits from them.
Communities that are considered merely a contingent aggregation of individuals is
closer to describing a group of shareholders of a company. Strain believes that real
communities have an autonomy of their own from which they derive intrinsic value.
DULACS is an attempt to bring out the intrinsic value of community. Even though
the classes are not focused on morality, the process of working on a project with other
people has invoked a feeling of community. The common goal brings out the feeling of
community. In DULACS students work toward a common goal, and they share the
sequence with other students on campus. The connection create a point of common
interest which builds community and the conscience of membership that Thomas Green
identifies.
In “The Economy of Virtue and the Primacy of Prudence,” Thomas F. Green
focuses on the best way to teach morality by arguing that the philosophy of moral
47
Michael Strain,1995: 4-20.
50
education is very different from moral philosophy. 48 Although he comes to conclusions
that have already been brought up in class, his explanation is very helpful.
Green begins by explaining the contrast between knowing virtue and knowing
how to acquire virtue. He believes a problem with moral education is that it deals too
much with moral philosophy. Some of the most successful schools of thought relate
virtue with a strong element of duty and self-sacrifice. Specifically, Green singles out
Kant and his emphasis on duty. Green sees this moral philosophy requiring “a kind of
heroism, a death of the self, to which “the natural man,” the prudential man, is not easily
inclined.”49 Kantian moral philosophy ignores basic elements of human nature: most
people are not heroes. While their vision of morality may work for the moral man or
woman, it will not work for the ordinary person, which Green class prudential man. The
philosophy of moral education should focus on ways to make prudential man into moral
man rather than searching for moral truth.
Green’s argument is similar to Doris’ point about the dangers of trying to emulate
your ideal rational self. What is best for ordinary you would not be the action taken by
your fully rational self. But Green believes philosophers of education must look for the
best account for spreading virtue, which may not be the same as the best account for
virtue itself. If we were instructing saints, it would be a different story, but the average
person is not a saint, and therefore needs a different method of moral education. While
Doris argued that morality itself should take human psychology into account, Green only
asks moral education to be based off of the principles of human nature.
48
49
Thomas Green, 1988: 127-142.
Green, 1988: 130.
51
Green outlines the “brute facts” of prudential man by saying that most people are
fundamentally looking after their own interests. They are not easily inclined to be
heroes, but they are not seeking to be villains either. Prudence is more natural than
morality because it deals with the basic desires for self-interest. Despite this primary
desire, Green believes people can be educated to act morally. He gives a very
convincing account for moving people from complacent hypocrites (which is me putting
words in his mouth. He doesn’t use the term, but I think it applies to prudential man) into
moral individuals. By accepting the primacy of prudence in human, moral philosophers
can develop a successful strategy for moral education.
Normally, people try to spread virtue by increasing its rewards and placing a high
cost on evil. Green argues that this is based off of the heroism principle which is a
flawed understanding of ordinary human nature. Instead, the cost of virtue should be
low while the potential reward for evil should be low as well. This makes virtue very
easy to do, while giving evil very little benefit. Green is not specific about how one
makes virtue easy and evil unrewarded. That is something I would like to discuss in
class.
Green defends his structure of moral education by arguing that morality means
overcoming prudence. Without the fundamental concern for self-interest, morality
doesn’t make sense. By replacing the prudential desires with moral desires, “we
subsequently become creatures of conscience.”50
50
Green, 1988: 139.
52
II. Service Learning
Does Drake nurture the mind or the body, or is it both? This dualism between
the mind and body was a split according to Descartes. However, Dewey suggests that
education should attempt to educate the whole being, mind and body. 51 In educating the
mind and body, this would include integrating subject matter with experiences. What
does Drake do? From the perspective of a senior Drake educates the mind or the body,
but not simultaneously. But there is a huge gap in this education. The gap is the bridge
which would educate both aspects of a person. While there are many answers to
bridging the gap, a suggestion is to take a humanistic approach to teaching, which
integrates subject matter52, specifically service learning might be an answer to this
distinct gap.
If the definition of service learning is volunteer work, it becomes a very limited
definition. Service learning is an integration of service work into the curriculum or class.
How it is integrated obviously depends on the teacher but it is an essential aspect that
Drake is missing. Some ways in which service learning has been integrated into
various classrooms, were having students volunteer outside the class in a setting of
their choice, and journal their experiences. Then during the class, these experiences,
which can be moral dilemmas, are talked about in class and reflected upon by other
students. Another way is to have the students work on one project as a whole class,
taking different perspectives on it. Such perspectives would include volunteering,
advocating, campaigning.53
51
Kezar and Rhoads, 2001: 151.
Ediger, 2006: 181.
53 Kahne and Westheimer, 1996: 592.
52
53
What is service learning trying to accomplish? McCarthy defined service learning
as, “students participate in a service activity for a nonprofit organization and then ‘reflect
on the service activity in such a way to gain further understanding of course content, a
broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility.”54
Drake’s classes are set up in such a way that students find themselves sitting in classes
discussing issues facing the world such as hunger, AIDS and abortion, but as students
we are only one, and see ourselves as such. This can lead to the question, “If I am only
one, what can I do?” Service learning attempts to reshape this idea by showing students
that these issues can be localized to their level and that one person within their
community can change a lot. Not only does it accomplish this, but it also allows for
students to see different cultural perspectives and recognize socialization within their
own communities. With reflection upon the service learning experiences, students only
further develop their critical thinking skills, such as moral reasoning, moral development
and seeing oneself as a moral agent.55 It is important to mention this, as Boss realized
in her study of the effect of community service work on the moral development of
college ethics students, seeing oneself as a moral agent can become a factor in
motivating students into action. Not only are students able to identify with social issues,
but they recognize themselves as part of the community, and even more so an effective
community member who can cause change.56
Often times though, some resistance is seen both from the students and faculty,
when trying to institute a service learning component into the curriculum. The service
learning integration has been more successful if it is volunteer. If it is mandatory, the
54
McCarthy, 1999: 554.
Boss, 1994: 183.
56 ibid.
55
54
debate and arguments are focused on the rights of people rather than what the service
learning is trying to accomplish.57 One might question, if we do not mandate service
learning then how can we encourage students to participate in this wonderful concept?
The suggested answer is that it be for credit. Offering service learning for credit
becomes apparent for several reasons. The first reason being it establishes
creditability. In having that creditability, service learning is given the seriousness and
attention it deserves. A second reason is that many of the extra circulars on campus are
made up of many of the same students, something that would likely happen if service
learning was not a for credit class. Having it for credit, and taking it one step further as a
graduation requirement, would suggest that the University administration has given this
the serious thought and attention, which could potentially cause students to be less
likely to question it.58
Service learning has three important stakeholders, the university, the students
and the outside community. Thus far only students have been recognized as
stakeholders, but the community is important as well. It is obvious because the
community is where the setting of service learning would be but if the community is
treated as a client that needs to get better, then the community would not really be
helped.59 Rather the community has just as much stake in educating the student as the
university does and should be treated as such. This then allows for the community to
feel as though they have a steak in the students’ education, thus further strengthening
relations between the community, the university and the students. Rather than students
going out into the community, the students should be asking the community, “How can
57
Barber, 1993: 236.
Ibid.
59 Ibid.
58
55
we help you?” For example, if the students were to help a homeless person by
collecting clothes to donate to the homeless shelter, then the students are treating the
community as a client. To treat the community as a partner, the students would turn to
the homeless shelter and ask, what do you need or what can we do? The university
needs to also be on board for service learning to work. 60 Drake is a community in itself
and has many stakeholders within it. The largest stakeholder would be the faculty. If
the faculty are not on board to integrate service learning into the curriculum then service
learning initiative would fail before it began.61
III. Resident Assistant
A part of the First Year Experience at Drake which is often overlooked is the role
of the Resident Assistant (“RA”). The RA is given a dual role at Drake University; they
must do their best to reach out to the residents under their watch and interact with them
whenever possible, and they also must make sure that the rules of Drake campus are
being followed. The importance of this role is magnified in the first year dorms due to
the fact that for many of these students their RA will be the upperclassman they have
the most exposure to. The curriculum program proposed encourages communication
and interaction between underclassmen and older classmates in order to assist the
moral development of both parties. Given this dialogue we're attempting to open
between students of differing experience levels, it would be reasonable to carry this
dialogue beyond the class and into the students' everyday environment. With the
current dual roles expected of RAs it would be a difficult task to properly perform the
60
Barber, 1993: 238. This article discussed a reciprocal relationship between community, students and
the university. This suggests that everyone has a stake in the student’s education.
61 Kezar, 2001: 160.
56
roles of “friend” and “watchdog”. For these reasons (and others given below) it is
necessary for Drake to look at their RA program and alter it so that it may help its
participants and students get the most out of the experience.
Currently it is necessary for an RA to facilitate social gathering amongst
members of the floor/dorm. It is necessary for each RA to organize at least one social
gathering per semester which members of their floor attend. This method is checked by
the use of sign-in sheets at some of these events. The idea behind this seems to be that
if social gatherings are offered and advertised then students will independently seek
them out and participate. The policy seems fairly vague concerning what constitutes a
social gathering. There are instances where such gatherings consisted mainly of
students eating food provided by the RA and then returning to their rooms. It is also
difficult for RA's to get many students interested in these activities due to competition
from off campus gatherings. Quite often students want to get off campus simply for the
sake of getting out of their normal surroundings.
Instead of focusing on organized social meetings, it would be best to have RA's
focus on interacting with their students in everyday situations. Encourage RA leave their
room and walk down their hallway, stopping to chat with anyone who has their door
open or may require assistance or simply company. Students will be far more likely to
respond to this type of approach because it appears as a more genuine and realistic
social interaction than organized social functions. It also helps make the RA/student
relationship seem more personal and more like the relationship real peers would have.
Many RA’s already regularly travel their halls in order to monitor student behavior; all
that would be required is a shift in focus from a disciplinary focus to a social focus.
57
The authoritarian role an RA is asked to take also causes difficulty in student/RA
relations. Many students feel they have to censor themselves around their RAs and
tend to see their RA more as an authority and less as a peer or someone they can trust
with personal issues. It would be very helpful for the RA system and many students to
remove this complication from the relationship. Many RAs have already attempted to do
this by privately admitting to their students that they won't act as an enforcer unless
major rules are broken. Students in these situations have claimed that it helped their
social relationship with their RA and made them feel more comfortable in the dorms.
This sense of comfort and companionship is very important to foster in the First Year
Experience seeing as how this will be the first time most of these students will be
separated from any sort of older guardian.
However, this does not mean that the RA would lose the authority they have to
punish serious transgressions of Drake policy. They would still be obligated to keep
their dorm hall safe. If a serious problem did arise, they could (and should) still contact
security just as they do now. It's just that instead of worrying about less serious
infractions, they would instead be there to ensure the general safety and comfort of
those on the floor they monitor.
In order to foster this spirit of community within the dorms it would be advisable
to separate the role of RA/college guide and enforcer. The RAs themselves would
remain in their same basic position except that it would not be their duty to inspect their
particular floors for violations. When a serious violation occurs the RA would be able to
contact the proper authorities (much as it is now) but they would no longer be placed in
the role of “watchdog.” This job could either be phased out in favor of student self-
58
policing, or instead taken over by volunteers (much like the RA system) whose job it
would be to enforce Drake policy.
As it stands now, it appears that the exact role of the RA is (to some degree) left
up to the RAs themselves. By talking with students, one finds RA experiences ranging
from slightly draconian, to supportive, to generally apathetic. Given the important role
the RA could potentially play in a student’s life, it's advisable that Drake makes this role
clear to the RAs and make sure that there is an attempt to fulfill this role on the part of
the RA. One possible method of monitoring RA performance would be to give dormhoused students an annual or semester evaluation sheet in which they could evaluate
their personal relationship with their RA and how effectively the RA is performing their
duties (similar to how professors are evaluated now).
III. Campus Atmosphere
For many students college is the first place where they are allowed to truly
discover who they are as individual, free of parental monitoring. It is in the best interests
of both Drake and the student body if Drake is willing to take an active part in this period
of personal growth. However, this participation may require Drake to reevaluate the role
it sees itself playing in its students' development. Many colleges tend to see themselves
as paternalistic entities. Their main duty is to keep students safe and in line with the
rules of the area. This type of attitude does not foster a sense of community between
students and the university and does a disservice to both by alienating the groups from
each other. In order to make Drake a holistic social and learning community it is
59
advisable for Drake to reconsider the role it wants to take in how it deals with its
students.
In his Nicomachean Ethics, Vol. VII, Aristotle drew a distinction between simply
following the rules, and behaving in a moral way. This can be found in his discussions
concerning akrasia (translated normally as weakness of will) in which he describes both
two types of strengths of will and two types of weaknesses of will. There those who do
wrong to seek pleasure where others would not (akrates), those who refrain from
obtaining immoral pleasure where others would not refrain (enkrates), those who avoid
doing what they should do, out of fear of discomfort or punishment (malakos) and those
who do what is right in spite of discomfort or punishment (karterikos). If an individual's
goal is to simply follow the rules you can still be committing an act of malakos. 62 They
can follow the rules when they are present, but when the rules are no longer present (or
enforced) they will behave the same as akrates. Instead of focusing on punishment as a
means of compliance, it would be more effective to help students develop as moral
beings.
When a student enters college they are entering a time of their life which is
believed to lead them into adulthood and maturity. A lot of this maturity is developed by
the challenges a student faces while at college. Through dealing with challenges in
academic, social and moral spheres it is expected that the student will over time
become more self-actualized and matured. However, it cannot reasonably be expected
that each student will be able to successfully guide themselves in this process without
having some difficulties. For many individuals, these difficulties seem like “too much”
62
Charlton, 1988: 34-59.
60
and they retreat from them in whatever ways possible.63 In many cases the retreat
comes in the form of alcohol or substance abuse, which is a growing concern on
campuses across the country.
It has been shown that individuals who have goals related to more ethical
(community focused) aims are less likely to overindulge in alcohol and other damaging
substances. In a study conducted amongst students at a Belgian school, students who
were more focused on self oriented, materialistic goals such as attaining/maintaining
wealth, status, and power were shown to be more likely to drink regularly, smoke
tobacco and use other recreational drugs in order to deal with personal stress and
challenges. Those who had goals more focused on community centered aims such as
charity work, political activism, and community improvement were less likely to drink,
smoke, or take recreational drugs. There was also a distinct difference in personal
perceptions of life satisfaction. Those who were self-focused were less likely to be
satisfied with their life than those whose values were centered on the community.64
Unhealthy behavior such as substance abuse and dependency is a symptom of a
bigger problem. In many cases it is a sign that an individual is not fulfilled with their
everyday life. Through assisting their students in becoming more complete individuals,
universities can stop the problem at it's source by helping their students realize that they
can make a difference and that they as individuals have worth beyond what salary they
are paid, or the job they might someday get. Ultimately, when students go to college
they should learn how big the world outside of the classroom is.
63
64
Isca Wittenberg, 2001: 307-312.
Vasteenkiste et al., 2006: 2892-2908.
61
CONCLUSIONS
A philosophy of moral education includes many aspects. In this project we
researched philosophy of mind, being the cognitive components of the human
experience that underwrite our moral judgment. In order to explain how Drake can make
its students actively moral, we have presented an account of moral development.
But cognitive accounts are not enough. We have included other aspects of moral
judgment, namely the role of emotion and imagination. We have shown how these noncognitive aspects should be enhanced to improve the relationship between thought and
action and to ultimately strengthen morality in college age students.
Moral development is not a solitary activity. Relationships between individuals
and within communities play a vital role. In outlining our account of moral development
we have included the expectations for members of the Drake community, which extend
through, but not limited to, the Des Moines area,
As graduates of Drake University, we fully stand behind these proposals. It is a
credit to Drake that we have the ability to view our experiences with a critical eye. Our
education has taught us to never be satisfied with what has been put before us. As we
prepare to leave this institution, we want to honor our four years by improving Drake
University for future students. In the spirit of this philosophical project, we hope that
every class will continue to reflect on their path to moral development.
62
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