International launch of University Communities for Character Development on May 25th

The international launch of University Communities for character development gathered College and Residence Hall Directors and Researchers from the United States, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Mexico to begin a community of practice for character education at the university level. The online meeting is the first output of the ongoing research project Leveraging Colegios Mayores for moral development in higher education through the Just Community approach, funded by the Association for Moral Education. This particular UCCD project aims to promote character development in residential university communities by enhancing the practice of collaborative governance.

The event was attended by Professors Marvin Berkowitz, Concepción Naval and Clark Power, all of them members of the UCCD's Advisory Board.  The attendees also included a significant international representation: Marin Luteran and Branislav Kuljovsky, representing Collegium Anton Neuwirth from Slovakia; Juan Carlos Carrillo, representing Residencia Universidad Panamericana from Mexico; Andrea Roncella, representing the Fondazione RUI in Italy; Alex Jordan, representing Netherhall House in UK; and José Pablo García Pomar, representing Colegio Mayor Belagua from Spain.

After a brief presentation of the initiative, each of the meeting's attendees had the opportunity to state why they are professionally involved in hosting or promoting residential university communities, which is the purpose that drives them. Afterwards, the UCCD hosts Juan P. Dabdoub, Aitor R. Salaverría, and Miroslava Duranková explained in more detail how everyone in the meeting could collaborate in diverse ways to share experiences and support each other to begin an international community of practice around the subject of character development at the university level through a community approach.