Personal Responsibility
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Personal Responsibility What does personal responsibility actually mean? This is one of those often used phrases that is easily tossed around but never really defined. Personal responsibility is an action that is done every day by everyone throughout the world. It is something that is not impartial no matter the color of your skin, your gender, how long you have lived or what religion you practice, it is the ultimate equal opportunity action. Personal responsibility comes in all shapes and sizes; it could be as small as making sure the children are off to school on time or as big as giving a presentation at a board meeting. While some people do not realize what they are responsible for, everyone has a personal responsibility to something. College success and personal responsibility go hand in hand. In a journal entry titled,
Developing a Global Perspective for Personal and Social Responsibility, the Association of
American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) deemed personal and social responsibility as one of the four essential learning outcomes college students should attain while obtaining a liberal education (Chickering and Braskamp, 2009). In order to make sure students are not only improving in the classroom but also improving in their personal responsibility skills, the
AAC&U are working with colleges and universities across the nation to make this skill a central part of higher education learning (Chickering and Braskamp, 2009). In a Trade Journal, which was featured in an issue of Liberal Education, the AAC&U was again at the forefront of stating reasons as to why personal responsibility was such an important trait to learn while attending college. The following is an excerpt from the Trade Journal itself outlining five aims that need to be assessed when dealing with personal and social responsibility Hersh, R. H., & Schneider, C. G. (2005). : “In this spirit, the panel convened by AAC&U and Templeton articulated five specific aims of liberal education that are integral dimensions of personal and social responsibility: 1. Striving for excellence; developing a strong work ethic and consciously doing one’s very best in all aspects of college
2. Acting on a sense of personal and academic integrity, ranging from honesty in relationships to principled engagement with an academic honors code
3. Recognizing and acting on the responsibility to contribute to a larger community, both the educational community (classroom, campus life, etc.) and the wider community
4. Recognizing and acting on the obligation to take seriously the perspectives of others in forming one’s own judgments; engaging the perspectives of others as a resource for learning, for citizenship, and for work
5. Develop competence in ethical and moral reasoning, and, in ways that incorporate the other five aims, using such reasoning in learning and in life” (Page 12). One can ascertain that by improving your personal responsibility skills; you will also improve yourself as a student. You cannot succeed in a forum of higher learning unless you take your personal responsibilities seriously. In this day and age people are constantly being pulled in all directions at what seems to be at the same time. Gone are the days where kids right out of high school are the only ones attending college, now people of all ages are trying to better themselves with a degree. For individuals who have been out of school for a while this is really going to take a concentrated effort for them to succeed in classes. Not only are they now taking classes but most of them are also employed and this is where personal responsibility is tested. An individual has a personal responsibility to their employer to be productive in the matter that they were hired; this same individual also has a personal responsibility to do what is asked of them in the courses that they