What Students Say Builds Character in College

University life is a bit like a train station. Students from many different backgrounds, locations, and political affiliations come together for learning, collaboration, and fun. Then, they choose career paths and head off in their own directions. So, even if they are side by side on a bench at the train station, they find themselves far from one another once they choose their train, pick their path, and travel into the future.

This phenomenon creates an exceptional opportunity for college and university faculty. Not only can they teach content, but they can help students cultivate character virtues needed for adult life and potentially see them spread throughout many areas of society.

Without too much heavy lifting, faculty can create classroom conditions that cultivate virtues like open-mindedness, awareness, empathy, and democratic citizenship. These virtues can help increase students’ capacity for ethical decision making, leadership, and professional growth, which are crucial for responsible participation in society.

As young people tackle heightened ideological polarization and partisan hostility in the U.S., they need the right tools to navigate tough conversations and connect with others whose lives look different from their own. Universities can offer a safe and structured, yet intellectually challenging, environment for their students to practice character virtues that are essential to a healthy society.

What university experiences support character development?

Our project team wanted to understand how students’ experiences at our university affect their capacity to cultivate character virtues. To do this, we conducted 12 focus groups with 51 undergraduate students, asking them to reflect on the aspects of their course experiences that either supported or hindered them in developing character virtues. Below are some key takeaways.

• What is character?

  “Character” is difficult to define. When we talk about “character” or “virtues” throughout this piece, we are referring to traits or dispositions that inform how individuals morally think, feel, and behave.

1. Activities that promote perspective taking and productive disagreement can support students in practicing virtues such as open-mindedness, awareness, and empathy. Examples of these activities varied in scope. Several students spoke about the importance of building meaningful relationships with peers, both inside and outside the classroom. They often mentioned how these opportunities were crucial in nurturing virtues related to open-mindedness and empathy.

Within classes, students highlighted that their most meaningful peer relationships were facilitated through working with members of their program cohort, participating in project-based group work, or discussing topics with partners. For example, students talked about how working in small-group settings encouraged them to build trust with one another, ultimately fostering a classroom environment that encouraged authentic dialogue and productive disagreement:

The [program] cohort that I’m in [is] still small enough where I could probably name everybody, and a fun fact about them, and like that’s super cool, because then I can also disagree with everybody because I feel comfortable, knowing who they are and I know their values, and I know how to contradict them in a way that’s productive versus just like arguing at someone for hours, [that] doesn’t get you very far.

One student, for example, recounted her experience completing an assignment that required her to interview someone who held a different political viewpoint from her. She shared:

I think [my Political Dialogue class is] where I started working on my open-mindedness . . . because [I realized] everyone has a deeper root for what they believe in. There was one guy I had to meet with and talk with, and the reason he was more [politically] conservative was because he grew up in the [Great] Depression era, and his [conservatism] came from the economic side. [This assignment] was really wonderful, because you also learn these skills of talking to people and presenting empathy and open-mindedness [to others].

One student shed light on how her course experiences have helped her grow in her ability to be more curious and less judgmental about people with different views than her own:

[My classes] allow me to have a wider perspective of people’s backgrounds, views, and ideas, and why they have them, even if it’s someone that I don’t agree with. I still appreciate being exposed to that. I think the way my classes are structured really help me learn from a different perspective . . . my professor will take time out of the beginning of class to literally put all [our] desks in a circle so that we look at each other when we speak. It’s little things like that that help with my moral development . . . when I leave [university], I’ll know how to properly listen to a person, ask follow-up questions, and ask clarifying questions . . . little things like that [can] help me learn about someone holistically rather than just [think] “they said a statement” and then I judge it based off of the statement.

2. Personal connections with instructors who show empathy help cultivate environments where students feel comfortable asking questions and sharing opinions. It is not surprising that students emphasized the critical role their instructors play. Specifically, they shared the importance of instructors demonstrating effort in building authentic and meaningful relationships with their students, and being accessible (such as lingering at the end of class, showing up where students spend time, making clear that faculty have time for and are interested in helping students, and providing office hours but also expressing to students how to use these office hours [e.g., “Come and chat”]).

Students also mentioned how the classroom culture set by their instructor influenced how comfortable they felt to express their opinions generally, but also how likely they were to engage in authentic dialogue with their peers:

I’m an [education] major, so a lot of our classes [involve] discussions. I feel [like this] relates a lot to being open-minded. I feel like a lot of the discussions in classes . . . the space is a lot more welcoming, for disagreement and challenging different ideas. And I feel like the professors are very supportive of that, too. I’ve also found that a lot of professors in that school [the School of Education and Human Development] are more willing to foster relationships with their students.

Not all students had positive experiences. Some students spoke about times when instructors created hostile classroom environments that discouraged authentic participation. One Black student shared about a time her professor used a racial slur and how this impacted her psychological safety:

I think that censorship is a big theme in classrooms and . . . I think that students don’t feel like they can truly express themselves because professors are not cultivating an environment where respectful debate is welcome. . . . I know one professor in particular—I love him, but he said something crazy . . . the N-word. And he’s white and tenured. That power dynamic gives you the ability to say something like that and not receive repercussions. . . . But students can’t. . . and that challenges your ability to truly like authentically, be yourself in the classroom. So, I appreciate when professors are who they are, but they are cognizant of the demographics that they are teaching. And even if those demographics are not in the room, they’re constantly including those demographics in their discussions, because to me, that’s true allyship and advocacy.

This example illustrates how important it is for instructors to be aware of their own personal attributes and past experiences, the power differences between them and their students, and the intersection of the two—especially in classrooms that include students with marginalized identities.

3. Understanding the relevance of course content within the real world impacts students’ virtue development. Students crave opportunities to apply their new classroom knowledge to real-world situations linked to current events in society. One student, for example, described how seeing real-life applications deepened their understanding of how they can exercise their civic-related virtues to make the world a better place:

I think using a real-life application project as a way to facilitate diversity [is meaningful]. I remember going to a conference two months ago and seeing a . . . competition where entrepreneurs pitched ideas about how they can use AI or machine learning or any type of technology to improve, for example, maternal health for Black mothers, since we are more likely to die in childbirth. . . . It’s really cool to see how innovative these projects can be and how it can help a lot of people who come from underrepresented backgrounds, or anyone who just wants the problem solved. So more of those real-life examples [in the classroom].

Though students want their learning to connect to real-world situations, it is not always feasible for instructors to implement experiential learning opportunities. Courses are already packed with specialized content and sometimes serve as a prerequisite for other courses. Saying yes to one type of content might mean saying no to another.

• What is character education?

  “Character education” refers to educational activities that promote the development of “character.” Character can be taught implicitly—a positive school culture leads to engagement in learning, a sense of belonging, and positive relationships that cultivate character. Character can be taught explicitly using curriculum, teaching practices, learning strategies, and resources directly aimed at supporting students’ virtue development.

Yet we see that college student engagement has dropped in recent years—students, on average, spent 1.7 fewer hours attending classes, discussion sections, and labs in 2022–23 than in 2018–19. Is it possible that incorporating real-world situations would enhance engagement? What if every semester included at least one course built around real-world, experiential learning? This might include asking students to follow a current news topic related to the course content for the full semester, creating assignments that require students to engage with community members, or learning about a local problem related to course content (e.g., local water testing in chemistry, or analyzing data from the city on problems like transportation or affordable housing in a data analysis class).

If it is too difficult to rework curriculum to create real-world opportunities, faculty can turn to other means to engage students in real-world experiences. At least 65% of students enrolled in college engage in research with faculty, extracurricular activities with student organizations, or civic participation. That raises the question—are there ways that instructors can create connections between students’ classes and their daily lives and activities outside of class?

What university experiences hinder character development?

Students were also candid in sharing aspects of their lives that can sometimes limit or challenge their capacity to engage in virtue development:

1. Being the “bigger person” in every situation is difficult to sustain. It is difficult for students to engage in perspective taking and practice open-mindedness with beliefs that oppose their own. One student, for example, reflected on how she grapples with expressing empathy with others, especially to those who hold perspectives that oppose her personal values:

I think sometimes it’s really hard to be compassionate and empathetic when I just don’t understand why [someone is] doing that. And then there’s also the idea of being fundamentally different from somebody, and somebody’s fundamental views on life and morals, are just different from my own and so it’s sometimes hard to give people any benefit of the doubt when I’m like, You’re representing something that I fundamentally disagree with.

2. Students expressed feeling uncertain about their future. This can make it difficult for them to prioritize practicing certain civic virtues, such as social action, because they are focused on how to navigate their own uncertainties ahead.

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Students expressed concerns regarding navigating an unstable job market, finding a job related to their degree, and ultimately establishing a career that is aligned with their values and how they want to contribute to society:

I’m currently about to graduate and I’ve accepted one job over another job. . . . I did have two [job] offers that I felt like both of them would have been making a positive change in the world, and would kind of get me closer to where I wanted to be in 5 to 10 years, but I picked one over the other largely because I feel really uncertain about where the economy is headed, where, like education in particular is headed. So, I chose a job over Teach for America, because I’m not super sure where the AmeriCorps is going to go. So yeah, I think financial stability matters to me. But I think at this point, making positive change also still really matters to me.

She also went on to share her concerns regarding the longevity of her career path, given current political realities:

As someone that’s studying public health intertwined in education, those are two things that I feel like are really being defunded or not invested in currently by the administration. Also, I got one of my offers rescinded initially, and that really sucked. I think that a huge challenge for me is trying to figure out and navigate this landscape of what do I do? [Do I choose] what I know will be good for my career in five years, post this [presidential] administration, or do I do what I need to do to be comfortable right now with where I’m at?

Young people will inevitably encounter circumstances that bump up against their character virtues. It is our responsibility, as educators, to provide our students with the tools they need to navigate these difficult moments, so they engage in ethical decision making. The best place to start, we’ve found, is by elevating the voices of your students and genuinely seeking to understand how you can best support their character development. So, start there: Listen first and create opportunities for students to stretch, practice, and apply virtues to real-life, day-to-day situations.