A student–faculty pedagogical partnership approach to enacting the seven strategies for character development

Purpose The purpose of the project we report on in this practitioner paper is to illustrate how character education might become a multi-directional, dialogical process between faculty and students. We analyze two grant-supported forums for educational development: (1) a pedagogy seminar for developing teaching strategies for fostering the virtues of respect, open-mindedness, and courage across the introductory-level curriculum, co-facilitated by two faculty colleagues, and (2) a pedagogy circle designed to support sustained learning and applications to practice, co-facilitated by two student partners. Design/methodology/approach Our approach to analysis includes a review of the ways our 20-year-old student–faculty pedagogical partnership program can foster the focal virtues of our project – respect, open-mindedness and courage – and a mapping of how each of the seven strategies for character development articulated by the Educating Character Initiative might be enacted through our pedagogical partnership program more generally and through our grant-funded project in particular. Findings When engaged through pedagogical partnership, all seven approaches to character development can shift toward a multidirectional dialog that deepens into new forms of relationality. Originality/value Most approaches to character development focus on how faculty can nurture virtues in students: a one-way and monological process. The originality and value of our approach is that it models, enacts and fosters a multi-directional, dialogical process between faculty and students that supports character education for both groups. The unique set of structures and practices that build on and extend the benefits of our long-standing student–faculty pedagogical partnership program, which we detail in this paper, offers a model that other institutions can adapt for their own contexts.