Colleges That Encourage Character Development: A Resource for Parents, Students, and Educators (The Templeton Guide)

Rating:
Summary: Note From a Disappointed Reader
Review: Based on my personal experience with some of the schools, I felt this book was more a platform for schools to put forth an image, rather than a evaluation of what a student will actually experience in terms of having their character nurtured at a particular school. I would like to see more anecdotal information about the character-building qualities of a school, not just a list of programs a college managed to collect that look good on paper. How is the campus perceived by the surrounding community? Do students feel supported to continue or pressured to abandon a moral lifestyle? Are weekend activities heavily laced with alchohol? Have students found that their awareness of and involvement in the needs around them has increased.
I found more that I wanted to know in The Insider's Guide to the Colleges, 2003 (Yale Daily News Staff). This book wasn't about character building and doesn't necessarily include the schools a reader may want to know about, but you get more of the real story about character building at a school by reading what the Insider's Guide does and doesn't say.
Regretfully, I don't recommend this book. It only looks at the veneer of character building, the collection of programs a college has managed to assemble, rather than the nature of the actual character-nurturing environment.

Rating:
Summary: A review of The Templeton Guide
Review: The Templeton Guide reviews 405 college programs in the areas of service, honesty, respect, and personal responsibility. In order for students to gain proper ethical and civic-minded training, the right college can teach these values to young adults who will adapt to such an environment. The Templeton Guide is a wonderful resource for examining certain college approaches to handling sensitive issues of personal resonsibility and honesty.

Rating:
Summary: Great book but I have my disagreements
Review: This fine book profiles colleges and universities in 10 categories including schools that promote honesty, spiritual development, leadership, voluteerism etc. Also profiled are 50 college presidents who make a difference. The book also includes an honor role featuring the top 100 schools that foster character development. As expected, many of the schools are smaller, religiously affiliated schools, however, many of the top known, larger universities are also liberally profiled. I have a major quibble, however. Schools that have arguably run counter to good character development are included. An example is Yale University which refused to allow religious Jewish students to opt out of the mandatory requirement to reside in a dorm when these students were offended by other students who were running around in various states of undress in co-ed dorms and who were openly entertaining their sesual partners. Still, all in all a very helpful resource.