Document Résumé Moral Actions in Young Adulthood Ralph L. Mosher, David Connor, Katherine M. Kalliel, James M. Day, Normal
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Document Résumé Moral Actions in Young Adulthood Ralph L. Mosher, David Connor, Katherine M. Kalliel, James M. Day, Normal Yokota, Mark R. Porter, & John M. Whitely ISBN/ISSN: 1-889271-26-8 Year Published: 1999 Pages: 280 Price: $30.00 Explores the growth in moral reasoning in college and beyond and its application to everyday dilemmas. MORAL ACTION IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD RALPH L. MOSHER DAVID CONNOR KATHERINE M. KALLIEL JAMES M. DAY NORMA YOKOTA JOHN M. WHITELEY Additional copies of this book may be ordered at $40 each from the National Resource Center for the First- Year Experience and Students in Transition, University of South Carolina, 1728 College Street, Columbia, SC 29208. Telephone (803) 777-6029. Telefax (803) 777-4699. Special gratitude is expressed to Randolph F. Handel, Corinna McLeod, and Tracy Skipper, Assistant Editors, for editing, design, and layout of this book; to Dr. Betsy Barefoot, Co-Director for Publications and Research; and to Dr. Dorothy Fidler, Senior Managing Editor. Copyright 1999, by the University of South Carolina. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or copied in any form, by any means, without written permission of the University of South Carolina. ISBN Number: 1-889271-26-8 The Freshman Year Experience® and The First-Year Experience® are service marks of the University of South Carolina. A license may be granted upon written request to use the terms The Freshman Year Experience and The First-Year Experience. This license is not transferrable without written approval of the University of South Carolina. Dedication James B. Craig who, for over 20 years, has kept the Sierra fl ame alive Daniel G. Aldrich, Jr. who nourished an atmosphere where the Sierra work could grow Ralph and Jessica Mosher whose courage in adversity has given us inspiration ABOUT THE COVER Students in the Sierra Project were nearly unanimous in reporting that they would not be who they had become if it were not for the college experience, especially on dimensions of thinking about moral issues. They did make one important qualifi er: They had not changed as much as they had developed. As we struggled to understand their meaning in using “developed” in contrast to “change,” it seemed to us that they were expressing that the core of who they were had remained the same. It was their stance in relation to those choices which had become more acute and sensitive, and this was considered by them to be devel- opment. The chambered nautilus (N. Pompilius, Linn.) represents an appropriate visual metaphor, for it symbolically illustrates the student conception of the growth process as they experience it. The actual cover sketch of the chambered nautilus is the original inspiration of Vivian Chang of the Publications Offi ce at the University of California, Irvine in 1982. She read portions of Character Development in College Students, Volume I in its manuscript form and subsequently prepared a series of sketches from which this cover was selected. The chambered nautilus is a member of the class Cephalopoda which contains the nautili, octopods, squids, and cuttlefi sh. Cephalopoda are the most highly organized of all mollusks and have attained the largest size of any invertebrates. In contrast to the occupants of “ordinary shells” whose bodies fi ll the entire shell cavity, the animal of the nautilus uses only a small portion of the shell or outer chamber; and builds pearly partitions behind its body through all the partitions, thus forming an anchor or mooring to the shell (Verrill, 1936, p. 150). Several stanzas of a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes on the Chambered Nautilus describe the growth of the Nautilus and parallel the growth which we have hoped to inspire in the character development of college students. Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year’s dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, v Built up its idle door; Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more . Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length are free, Leaving thin outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea! (Holmes, 1950, pp. 97-98) References Verrill, A. H. (1936). Strange sea shells and their stories. Boston: L. C. Page & Co. Holmes, O. W. (1950). The works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. I. New York: Houghton Miffl in. vi MORAL ACTION IN YOUNG ADULTHOOD TABLE OF CONTENTS From the Executive Director ....................................................................xi John N. Gardner From the President of The University of South Carolina Ovid’s Plea, Our Responsibility ...............................................................xiii John M. Palms FOREWORD Sierrans Revisited Research: A Rationale .............................................. xvii Ralph L. Mosher INTRODUCTION From Character in College to Moral Action in Young Adulthood ..............xxvii John M. Whiteley SECTION 1 Origins and Results of the Original Sierra Project CHAPTER ONE Nevitt Sanford on Community and Concern with Moral Values in Higher Education .............................................................. 3 Nevitt Sanford vii CHAPTER TWO The Aims of the Sierra Curriculum: “On Leaping Tall Buildings In A Single Bound” ......................................... 13 Ralph L. Mosher CHAPTER THREE Character Development Over Four Years of Undergraduate Study ............25 John M. Whiteley and Norma Yokota SECTION 2 Theoretical Underpinnings of the Sierrans Revisited Research CHAPTER FOUR Young Adulthood in the Life Cycle .......................................................... 53 CHAPTER FIVE Doing the Right or Good Act: Theories of Moral Action ............................ 69 CHAPTER SIX Further Theoretical Perspectives on Making Moral Choices ............................................................................ 83 Molly Patterson SECTION 3 Narrative Insights into Moral Action in Young Adulthood CHAPTER SEVEN Moral Dilemmas from Young Adulthood .................................................109 CHAPTER EIGHT Moral Dilemmas in Interpersonal Relationships ..................................... 125 CHAPTER NINE Moral Dilemmas in the Workplace .........................................................135 viii CHAPTER TEN Exemplary Sierrans: Moral Infl uences ................................................... 145 SECTION 4 Research Conclusions and Future Directions for Promoting Moral Action CHAPTER ELEVEN Moral Dilemmas of Everyday Life: Voices of the Sierrans ...................... 157 CHAPTER TWELVE Exceptional Moral Behavior .................................................................. 175 CHAPTER THIRTEEN Strength of Character and Moral Agency ...............................................183 CHAPTER FOURTEEN Toward Promoting Moral Action in Young Adulthood ............................... 197 APPENDIX A Moral Action Interview ......................................................................... 209 APPENDIX B Moral Behavior Interview ......................................................................215 APPENDIX C The Moral Infl uence Interview ...............................................................223 CONTENT AND AUTHOR INDEXES ............................................. 225 ix FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR It is with great pleasure that I introduce this book which is co-authored by John Whiteley and his Sierra Project Revisited colleagues: Ralph Mosher, David Connor, Katherine Kalliel, James Day, and Norma Yokota. John Whiteley is the educator who helped us launch this Center and this publications series. As the title implies, this volume is about moral action in young adulthood. It signifi cantly widens the scope of the original moral and character development study involving a population of fi rst-year college students which was performed in the Sierra Residence Hall at the University of California, Irvine in 1975. It is my belief that nothing could be more important as an outcome of the fi rst col- lege year in American higher education than promoting the moral and character development of our students. The very creation of the course, University 101, which we have been offering to fi rst-year students at the University of South Carolina for 26 years, was based on the exercise of moral and social activism of our students. Specifi cally, in May of 1970, approximately 1,000 of them gathered to protest the Cambodian invasion. These students were confronted by the South Carolina Na- tional Guard, and this confrontation resulted in a student riot and takeover of the Administration Building. The University’s President, who was barricaded in his offi ce for a period of 24 hours, emerged from that experience committed to the creation of a humane, student-centered environment; the centerpiece of that environment was the University 101 fi rst-year seminar. Helping students explore and become committed to a reasoned system of values has been one of the primary goals of this course since it was fi rst offered in 1972. With this as personal and historical context, I commend this book to you and ex- press my deep appreciation to John Whiteley and his colleagues for providing us this landmark study. We recognize the inherent diffi culties in implementing any curriculum which is seen as an addition to traditional academic fare. But we hope that these extraordinary fi ndings will spur you,