Character is at the heart of Bryant's mission

The University is committed to developing the character of each student to ensure success, as they define it.

At the end of the fall semester, President Ron Machtley and Bryant administrators brought students together for a campus-wide forum to talk about the importance of ethics and values.

"There is no more important concept than character," said Machtley.

At the event, he unveiled a new acronym to define character at Bryant: SIRR - self-management, integrity, responsibility, and respect for yourself and others, which are hallmarks of a person of upstanding values, he said.

Students in Associate Marketing Professor Carol DeMoranville's market research class - in separate projects - examined the current perceptions of Bryant students and faculty/staff of character at Bryant to form a benchmark for future studies on the topic.

Joseph Atkins '07 (Harrisville, RI), Mathew Bennet '08 (Providence, RI), Michael Gorman '08 (Wethersfield, CT), Danica Roestorf '08 (Ridgefield, CT), and Richard Wells '08 (Wayne, NJ) wrote a survey and compiled responses from 156 faculty, staff and administrators - a 20 percent response rate. The data indicated that the character rating at Bryant is high. On a one to five scale - with five being the highest - the average response for faculty and staff/administrators approached four.

About 45 percent of respondents said, "Character represents one's conduct, actions, and reactions to various conditions in life and relations with others, even when no one else is looking." Another 32 percent said, "Character is the level of one's honesty, integrity, morality, and ethical strength."

Applying issues of ethics to subjects being studied or using "real world" examples of how character is tested in the workplace would further emphasize its importance, the group said.

"If we are going to succeed in character development and awareness on campus it can't be a unilateral effort," said Wells. "Luckily a strong bond exists between faculty, staff, and students," he said.

David Clark '08 (New Canaan, CT), Nicole Dandurand '08 (Warwick, RI), Kimberly Dugdale '08 (Walpole, MA), Trevor Hambright '08 (Concord, MA), Bryan Molk '07 (Peabody, MA) polled 250 students and determined that 90 percent could identify Bryant's brand: "The Character of Success."

On a scale of one to five the average student's rating on the importance of character at school, the workplace, home and social situations exceeded four in all situations, with work rated the highest. Nearly three-quarters of all students said maintaining character is not a problem, while the most common test of character comes in social situations, according to nearly 40 percent of respondents.

"Eventually, Bryant's focus on character will become evident to people outside of the University," said Dugdale. "When companies see a résumé from a Bryant student they will know that person has strong character."

"Considering college students are being shaped to go on into the real world, this is a crucial time to have a strong focus on developing and valuing the importance of having good character," said Clark.

The greater emphasis on a detailed definition of character at Bryant is vital to provide guiding principles for students to fall back on when they are faced with new or questionable situations, said DeMoranville, a member of the President's Task Force on Character Development.

The goal is to continue to build a better awareness of the school's definition. Events like the campus-wide forum will continue as will further integration of the meaning of character into Freshmen Orientation and Freshmen Foundations for Learning classes.

"A vague definition of character does not help students make good decisions," said DeMoranville. "A specific explanation including self-management, integrity, responsibility, and respect is easier to understand and act upon."