Notre Dame Symposium on Personality & Moral CharacterNotre Dame Symposium on Personality & Moral Character

October 12-14, 2006

McKenna Hall, University of Notre Dame

Education of virtuous character has been particularly prominent in recent years.  Most parents want to raise children to become persons of a certain kind, persons who possess traits that are desirable and praise-worthy, whose personalities are imbued with a strong ethical compass.  Moreover, the development of moral character is considered a traditional goal of formal education. The number of titles published on the problems of character and its role in private and public life has increased dramatically over the past decade.   So have curricula for teaching the virtues in both schools and homes. For more information...

Schedule

To register or request additional information

Travel Information

About the Symposium

Education of virtuous character has been particularly prominent in recent years.  Most parents want to raise children to become persons of a certain kind, persons who possess traits that are desirable and praise-worthy, whose personalities are imbued with a strong ethical compass.  Moreover, the development of moral character is considered a traditional goal of formal education. The number of titles published on the problems of character and its role in private and public life has increased dramatically over the past decade.   So have curricula for teaching the virtues in both schools and homes.

Yet for all the apparent consensus about the need to raise children of strong moral character, and for all the professional attention devoted to the cause it is a striking fact that character education occupies contested ground in academic and public life. As Cunningham (2005) points out, “Unless psychology can provide a better model of human development…character will continue to receive sporadic and faddish treatment and the public’s common school will continue to be undermined.”

The Notre Dame Symposium onPersonality and Moral Character, October 12-14, 2006, will bring together leading scholars presenting several different theoretical and research-based approaches to the concept of moral personality and the role of moral commitments in the construction of identity.  In addition to creating a forum for dialogue among already-established thought leaders, the Symposium aims to inform, engage, and inspire the work of rising scholars in the field. 

The symposium participants will provide theoretical and research-based approaches to work out the nature of moral personality, and the role of moral commitments in the construction of identity.  The symposium is premised on the claim that any minimally adequate understanding of moral education requires robust models of “character psychology”; and that any minimally adequate understanding of moral character must be grounded on what we know about human personality and its development The culminating discussion at the symposium will be about how educational programs ought to cultivate moral character and moral personality.

To view a pdf describing the Symposium that also lists the schedule, click here.

Symposium Schedule

Click here for a printable version of the Syposium schedule.

Notre Dame Symposium on Personality & Moral Character
Sponsored by the Collaboration for Ethical Education
October 12-14, 2006

THURSDAY
7:00      Dinner reception, Morris Inn
8:00      Opening
            Welcoming remarks
            Chair: Darcia Narvaez, Executive Director, Collaboration for Ethical Education, Univ. of Notre Dame

FRIDAY (all sessions in McKenna Hall 210/214)
Please click each speaker's name/title to link to a PDF of his/her précis.
9-10      Moral Personality:  We Know What's (Im)Moral, but What's (Not) Personality?
            Daniel Cervone, University of Illinois—Chicago
            Chair: Dan Lapsley, University of Notre Dame    
10-11    Updating Moral Development Theory: Early Conscience
            Ross Thompson, University of California-Davis
            Chair: Benoit Monin, Stanford University
11-12    The Development of the Moral Self in Childhood and Adolescence
            Clark Power, University of Notre Dame
            Chair: Augusto Blasi, University of Massachusetts, Emeritus 
12-1      LUNCH at the Morris Inn, Trustees and Council Rooms
1-2        The Development of Moral Self-Concepts in 'Tweens, Teens, and Youth
            Ann Higgins D’Alessandro, Fordham University
            Chair: Clark Power, University of Notre Dame
2-3        Growing into Generativity: Adolescent Roots of a Generative Self in Emerging Adulthood
            Michael Pratt, Wilfrid Laurier University
            Chair: Bryan Sokol, Simon Fraser University
3-4        The Redemptive Self: Generativity and the Good American Life
            Dan McAdams, Northwestern University
            Chair: Jim Lies, University of Portland
4-5        The Neurobiological Roots of Our Multiple Moral Personalities
            Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame
            Chair: Tonia Bock, University of St. Thomas                  

SATURDAY  (all sessions in McKenna Hall 210/214)
Please click each speaker's name/title to link to a PDF of his/her précis.
9-10      Moral Personality Exemplified
            Larry Walker, University of British Columbia
            Chair: Jeremy Frimer, University of British Columbia
10-11    Does Gratitude Motivate Moral Action?
            Bob Emmons, University of California-Davis
            Chair: Kevin Reimer, Azusa Pacific University
11-12    The Role of Task Specificity in the Relations between Personality
                        and Prosocial Behaviors: A Meta- Analysis  

            Gustavo Carlo, University of Nebraska—Lincoln
            Chair: Sam Hardy, University of Virginia
12-1      LUNCH at the Morris Inn, Trustees and Council Rooms
1-2        Building Virtues: Character as the "Results Section" of ExperimentsInTruth
            Bill Puka, Renssalaer Institute
            Chair: Nicholas Lynchard, University of Notre Dame
2-3        Urban Neighborhoods and Moral Development
            Dan Hart, Rutgers University
            Chair: Kyle Matsuba, University of Northern British Columbia
3-4        The Formation of Professionalism in Medical, Nursing, and Engineering Education
            Anne Colby, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
            Chair: Jason Stephens, University of Connecticut
4-5        Closing Discussion led by provocateurs:
            Dan Lapsley, University of Notre Dame
            Augusto Blasi, University of Massachusetts-Emeritus

            Chair: Darcia Narvaez, University of Notre Dame

To register or request additional information

For more information or to register for the Notre Dame Symposium on Personality & Moral Character, call 574-631-7066 or email cee@nd.edu.

Travel Information

The symposium is taking place on the campus of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN.
For information on travel to Notre Dame go to: http://www.nd.edu/visitors/dir.shtml
A map of the University of Notre Dame campus can be found at: http://www.nd.edu/maps/

The host hotel for the Symposium is the Inn at Saint Mary's: www.innatsaintmarys.com.

Travel from the South Bend Airport to the Notre Dame Campus:
Taking a taxi from the airport to the hotel will be the most efficient. Tell the taxi driver to take you to the St. Mary's Inn just off of Notre Dame's campus.

Sessions will be held at the McKenna Collaboration for Continuing Education: http://cce.nd.edu/
The building provides wireless internet access.

Shuttle service will be available between the Inn at Saint Mary's and the McKenna Collaboration for Continuing Education on Friday and Saturday:
Shuttles will leave the Inn each morning at 8:15, 8:30, and 8:45.
Shuttles will leave McKenna each afternoon at 5:15, 5:30, and 5:45.