American higher educationhistorically and inherentlyis a morally formative endeavor. Yet, in order to respond to Americas moral pluralism, higher education has increasingly taken a reductionistic approach to moral formation. Consequently, it abandoned the effort to supply students with moral expertise. Current approaches help students learn how to be excellent professionals and citizens, but they fail to provide the necessary tools for living the good lifein college and beyond.

Identity Excellence: A Theory of Moral Expertise for Higher Education addresses this problem by setting forth a multi-disciplinary theory of moral expertise for fostering moral excellence in an array of important identities. To this end, it teases apart the essential elements of what it means to be excellent in an identity before discussing the philosophical, sociological, psychological, and educational processes necessary for students to internalize traditions of identity excellence as part of their own moral identities. Overall, the emergent theory exposes the shortcomings in contemporary general education, professional ethics, and co-curricular education.

Finally, this book sets forth a bold but compelling vision for a more hopeful future for American higher education. As outlined within, such education involves teaching students excellence in the Great Identities, as well as how to prioritize and integrate their pursuit of identity excellence.

Perry L. Glanzeris professor of educational foundations at Baylor University and a resident scholar with Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. He has authored and edited fourteen books, includingThe Dismantling of Moral Education: How Higher Education Reduced the Human Identity.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Higher Educations Confusion about Moral Expertise

Part I. Understanding the Relationship between Moral Excellence and Identity

Chapter 1. Who Am I and Who Should I Become? The Philosophical and Sociological Frames

Chapter 2. The Most Important Ingredients for Moral Motivation: From the Sociological to the Philosophical, Psychological, and Moral Frames

Chapter 3. The Challenge of Ordering Our Multiple Identities for Excellence: Combining the Philosophical, Psychological, and Sociological Frames with Theology

Part II. The Problems with Contemporary Collegiate Moral Education: Using the Frames for Critical Analysis

Chapter 4. The Ethically Challenged Curriculum: General Education

Chapter 5. The Curricular Reduction of Ethics to Professional Ethics

Chapter 6. How Contemporary Student Affairs Diminishes Moral Education

Part III. The Pursuit of Human Flourishing through Identity Excellence

Chapter 7. Teaching Excellence in the Great Identities: A Revised Educational Frame

Chapter 8. Identity Prioritization and Integration for Excellence

Conclusion: The Humanizing Imago Dei University

Bibliography

About the Author