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Centering intellectual character development at UC-Irvine

"We have reached an unprecedented number of faculty, students, and campus partners. The positive responses to what we are doing have been very gratifying, and they spur us forward, particularly now that our goal is to take our project activities beyond the UC Irvine campus, not only into other campuses but also into other educational contexts, like prisons and high schools." — Duncan Pritchard

What would it look like if a university placed the development of intellectual virtue at the center of its curriculum? How would that decision impact the university culture, its programming, and its offerings for students? Are there any models of this kind of program that could help you and your colleagues catch a vision for this work at your institution?

One place to look for answers is the Anteater Virtues program at the University of California-Irvine (UCI). This project focuses on the development of four key intellectual virtues: curiosity, integrity, intellectual humility, and intellectual tenacity. And one of the distinctive dimensions of the project is the support it enjoys from senior academic leadership. Chancellor Howard Gillman spoke about intellectual virtues as part of his 2022 convocation address on UCI’s education mission.

In 2024, Duncan Pritchard received an Institutional Impact grant to expand this innovative effort in significant ways beyond the UCI context. Through the Educating for Virtuous Intellectual Character project, UCI is developing a suite of new learning modules in particular subject areas (e.g., engineering, humanities, physical sciences, and so on) aimed at advanced undergraduate students; a new certificate program available to all undergraduate students; and freely available public modules and supporting educational resources that serve distinct educational audiences. They are also advancing research about intellectual virtue formation as a core dimension of their work. 

“The most amazing feature of this year has been having our project placed front-and-center of UC Irvine’s campus wide theme for the 2024-25 academic year on scholarly values,” Pritchard writes. “This has meant we have reached an unprecedented number of faculty, students, and campus partners. The positive responses to what we are doing have been very gratifying, and they spur us forward, particularly now that our goal is to take our project activities beyond the UC Irvine campus, not only into other campuses but also into other educational contexts, like prisons and high schools.”

As part of this work, the chancellor’s podcast series, Anteater Insider, devoted four podcast episodes to showcase their project. Each podcast episode focuses on the connections between intellectual virtues and scholarly values. You can listen to some examples below: