Header image with the Saint Mary's logo and the following title and subtitle: Forming Ethical Leaders: Character, Virtue, and Ethics in the Classroom
Table of Contents

Introduction: Supporting Virtuous Communities
Initiatives and Programming
    Empowering Ethical Leaders
        Hendrickson Institute for Ethical Leadership Events
        Character Education in the Age of Automation
        Orientation to Character Education and Virtue Formation
    Effective and Excellent Education
        Course Enhancement Institute
        Online Instructor Certification
    Character and Virtue Reflection Series
        Values Statement Activity
        Character Strengths Activity
        The Twelve Virtues of a Good Teacher

Saint Mary’s is deeply committed to empowering students for ethical lives of service and leadership—for being people of integrity who bring goodness into the world. Our guiding framework is virtue ethics because of its unparalleled longevity, global relevance, empirical support, cross-cultural application, and congruence with our Lasallian Catholic mission and identity.

– Position Statement on Character Education and Virtue Formation

Supporting Virtuous Communities

The Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching promotes academic excellence by awakening, nurturing, and empowering the university community to be effective, transformative, and holistic educators who ensure quality student learning across all academic offerings at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

CELT inhabits this vision by supporting the character education initative of the university which operates as the mechanism through which we empower ethical leaders.

Saint Mary’s community members who participate in CELT development opportunities related to character education and whole-person formation will be able to:

  • Cultivate virtue literacy in students and colleagues, including the cardinal and theological virtues, the Jubilee Centre framework, and the Lasallian virtues of a good teacher
  • Promote human flourishing and dignity through integrating character education, virtue formation, and mature technology-adoption within their classrooms, units, and programs
  • Apply the practical wisdom of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition and the Lasallian charism that proceeds from it to pressing concerns for higher education and our shared communities
  • Create whole-person learning environments in which students can develop and reach formation goals in the context of their unique vocations

The initiatives, activities, and programming below rely on the following resources:

Initiatives and Programming

Though all CELT offerings are designed to support whole-person formation in the classroom and beyond, the following initiatives include offerings that offer direct training on character education.

Empowering Ethical Leaders

Following the university’s distinctive Lasallian charism, which views education as an expression of Christian humanism that is fundamentally transformational, evangelical, and focused on the dignity of the poor, CELT supports the university’s mission to promote human flourishing through forming ethical leaders through various partnerships.

Hendrickson Institute for Ethical Leadership Events

In partnership with the Hendrickson Institute for Ethical Leadership, CELT organizes readings groups across university on books related to human flourishing and happiness written by the speaker at the annual Hendrickson Forum. See the most recent reading group.

This partnership enables student-facing training on ethical leadership. Students who earn the Ethical Leadership Badge will be further introduced to character strengths with the VIA inventory. In partnership with Hendrickson and Career Services, CELT also offers training on virtuous community building and networking: Hendrickson Forum Primer: Networking and Building a Culture of Love.

Character Education in the Age of Automation

To promote human flourishing and dignity through integrating character education and mature technology adoption in the classroom, CELT has organized a series begun at Convocation, continued through Pod and Ponder sessions, and concluding with public-facing summer webinars. The webinar series approaches emerging technology with the insights of whole-person education and includes sessions from CELT, the Writing Center, and the Library.

Orientation to Character Education and Virtue Formation

This onboarding presentation introduces new employees to character education with special focus on our position statement and the Jubilee Centre Framework.

Effective and Excellent Education

CELT informs and supports the “educational artistry” of faculty through programming and training opportunities steeped in innovative and effective practices in course design, community building, technology integration, and relational teaching across modalities.

Course Enhancement Institute

This week-long course redesign retreat provides faculty the opportunity to integrate character formation in their courses. The sessions introduce participants to effective course design and management practices within the context of cultivating character formation and ethical behavior. Following the principles of Lasallian education, participants explore how to nurture the whole person within the context of their respective disciplines and professionalization goals for students.

Online Instructor Certification

This introductory course to effective teaching in different online modalities supports faculty in synthesizing the philosophy of whole-person formation with adult learning theories. Throughout the course, participants gain first-hand experience in an online learning environment, connect and learn with peers through a variety of learning activities, and reflect on their own teaching persona in light of their values, character strengths, and the Twelve Virtues of a Good Teacher.

Character and Virtue Reflection Series

The three-part reflection series available below is designed to help participants order the prevalent language of values to growth in character strengths and virtues that enact those values. This series has been used in the Online Instructor Certification courses, a First-Year Experience course, and as part of the De La Salle Week celebration. The series is available for use by Saint Mary’s community members and can be revised to meet specific course or training needs and embedded in Canvas or hosted on the CELT site.

Values Statement Activity

Whether designed for students or faculty and staff, the series begins with the language of values, so we can examine where our attention is before pinpointing specific virtues to cultivate.

Character Strengths Activity

The series continues by transitioning from values to character and virtue with the VIA character strengths inventory as participants reflect on how sustained habits, or virtues, enable the moral life. This activity draws on Dr. Antar Salim’s work with Character Strengths and Leadership.

The Twelve Virtues of a Good Teacher

The series concludes with an application of the Lasallian Virtues of a Good teacher to our professional lives with versions available for students, instructors, and staff.

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Our Mission

Enriched by the Lasallian Catholic heritage, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota awakens, nurtures, and empowers learners to ethical lives of service and leadership.