Growing Character Strengths Across Boundaries

Creating a community of purpose amongst engineering students is helpful in guiding their successful transition from high school to higher education learning environments. In such learning environments, the capacity to studiously pursue long-term goals can be a defining characteristic of successful students. Duckworth and associates refer to this as the “tendency to sustain interest in and effort towards very long-term goals” [1]. In this paper, we will discuss the work we are currently doing to develop strength in character for our students. First, it is important to understand the word ‘grit’ as one that encompasses traits we wish for our students to build upon. Essentially, to have grit implies having a trait-level perseverance, resilience, and passion for achieving long-term goals; all attributes which are recognized as important to the retention and graduation of first-generation university students. We are currently fostering the development of grittiness in students at two interconnected institutions of higher learning: El Paso Community College (EPCC) and The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Using online tools to support self-awareness, we monitor their progress as they begin to cross behavioral boundaries. We will also extensively discuss EduGuide [2], an online toolset that incorporates a series of life lessons which we use to investigate how effectively we can impress upon students the benefits of growing grittiness. The discussion will center on EduGuide’s features, accessibility, and reported effectiveness.