In My Opinion: Educating Responsible Leaders
We must do more than teach young people how to make a living. We must teach them how to make a life. 
From the Spring 2006 Pacific Review
By Donald V. DeRosa
Making leadership development an explicit part of what happens in college is critically important in our increasingly complex society. Higher education leaders were recently reminded of this by a report from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), which concludes that change is urgently needed to meet the greater expectations placed on colleges and universities by students, parents, employers, and policy makers.
The report urges institutions to give students the opportunity to "look beyond the classroom to the world's major questions" and "apply their developing analytical skills and ethical judgment to significant problems in the world around them."
I am proud to report that Pacific is already on the forefront of universities providing this opportunity. Our distinctive student-centered learning experience, which integrates the liberal arts and sciences with professional studies, is a national model of excellence.
At the core of a Pacific undergraduate education is a series of seminars all undergraduates take, beginning in the freshman year. These courses, which many of you may recall as the "Mentor Seminars," focus on developing the self-knowledge and social awareness the AAC&U report identifies as critical success factors for the 21st century.
Beginning in the fall of 2006, Mentor Seminars will be renamed Pacific Seminars, and their focus will shift to preparing students for lives of engaged citizenship. During the first semester, students will meet in small classes to explore the question, "What is a Good Society?" All freshmen will read and discuss the same materials, covering issues such as the purpose of education, the nature of work and the economy, the value of the arts and sciences, the functions of law and government, the rights and responsibilities of the citizen, and the place of humans in the natural world. These themes are explored in depth in a variety of topical seminars offered in the second semester.
During the freshmen seminars, students will begin to develop an on-line portfolio of their work, which will document their personal growth over the next four years. This portfolio will be used during the senior-year Pacific Seminar, in which students will reflect upon their development and look forward to their future roles as members of the workforce, and active participants in local, regional, national, and global communities.
The intellectual and ethical development these seminars help to stimulate is enriched and strengthened through co-curricular programs, including on- and off-campus opportunities for student leadership and service learning.
Pacific has long had a tradition of actively encouraging community service on all three campuses. In Sacramento, the law faculty and students have forged close ties with the surrounding neighborhood and a nearby high school. In San Francisco, dentistry students and professors provide thousands of hours of free and reduced-cost care to the economically disadvantaged and underprivileged. And in Stockton, our Center for Community Involvement (CCI) acts as a bridge between the University and the community. The CCI, which continues the outstanding legacy of the Anderson Y, will generate more than 10,000 student and faculty service hours this academic year.
This great Pacific tradition is truly a win-win situation, benefiting our neighbors while giving students the opportunity to apply what they have learned and allowing them to gain a first-hand understanding of the challenges many Californians face every day. Such an experience is so very important for every student, regardless of his or her major, because it develops the leadership skills that have been a hallmark of Pacific graduates since 1851.
Through our Pacific Seminars, our community service programs, and in so many other ways, this University lives out its mission. As educators, we must do more than teach young people how to make a living. We must help them learn how to make a life.
