Examples of Good Practice from Association of American Colleges and Universities

Core Commitments

Core Commitments is a signature AAC&U initiative to advocate for the development of personal and social responsibility as an essential, rather than optional, educational component of every student’s college experience. Core Commitments focuses national attention on the importance of students’ exploring questions about ethical responsibility to self and others and to taking seriously the perspectives of others. The initiative has developed a new campus climate instrument, the Personal and Social Responsibility Institutional Inventory, to help campuses assess the pervasiveness of such education, is working with a Leadership Consortium of 23 institutions developing exemplary curricular, co-curricular, and community-based programs, and over 300 college and university presidents who are championing education for personal and social responsibility on their own campuses and to a wider public. Finally, through meetings, publications, and web resources, we have broadened the scope and impact of the Core Commitments initiative.

Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility

Shared Futures: Global Learning and Social Responsibility is a multi-project, national initiative of AAC&U that has been ongoing since 2002. The active project within this initiative, General Education for Global Learning, works with a network of campuses to develop curricula that prepares students to address the issues of an interdependent but unequal world. This includes attention to issues of intercultural learning, civic responsibility, democracy, and human rights. Through AAC&U funded mini-grants, workshops, and meetings, campuses develop and exchange resources in order to integrate global learning issues into their general education programs. AAC&U has also implemented a “Global Perception Survey” to assess student progress as they move through their general education courses.

AAC&U Publications and Resources

AAC&U publications and resources are an important component for disseminating information to the larger academic community. Our tri-quarterly newsletter, Diversity and Democracy, features innovative and effective campus practices that contribute to civic learning for a shared future as institutions design diversity programs, civic engagement initiatives, and global learning opportunities to better prepare students for principled action in today’s complex world. DiversityWeb is a resource hub of diversity practices and research in higher education and includes Diversity and Democracy on its site. Issues of intercultural learning, civic engagement, and global learning are woven into larger, practical examples of institutional policies, curriculum designs, and faculty/staff/student development. Please visit the AAC&U website for a variety of publications and resources on diversity, global learning, and civic engagement.

This page is part of a series of Examples of Good Practice.