Q&A With Mary Katherine Duncan and Jennifer Johnson of the Bloomsburg University GoodWork Initiative

By Daniel Mucinskas

Welcome sign for Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania

At Bloomsburg University, one of the public institutions of higher education in Pennsylvania, colleagues have been spreading the message of “good work” since 2011. The Bloomsburg GoodWork Initiative involves a number of interrelated efforts, including an orientation activity for new students on “good work” defined by the three Es (excellence, ethics, and engagement), workshops, courses, and student research.

The Initiative is spearheaded by Mary Katherine Duncan, Joan and Fred Miller Distinguished Professor of Good Work, and Jennifer Johnson, Associate Professor, both in Bloomsburg’s Department of Psychology. Below, we ask them several questions about their projects, what led them to champion “good work,” and their challenges and successes.

We hope that others planning or working on similar pursuits can learn from their example.

Q: With the Bloomsburg University (BU) GoodWork Initiative now well-established, how has the program evolved over time?

Mary Katherine: We began the BU Good Work Initiative on a large scale with a campus-wide introduction to the concept of Good Work through guest lectures, faculty workshops, and a website. Then, we sought to embed the concept of Good Work into existing programming. For example, we used the three Es (excellence, ethics, and engagement) of Good Work to introduce incoming first-year students to the expectations of our academic community. Since 2011, we have designed, implemented, and assessed mandatory summer reading assignments, freshmen orientation workshops, and first year seminars. We are currently assessing a Good Work-inspired online module for all incoming first-year students.

Over the last few years, we have concentrated our efforts on examining factors that motivate and challenge psychology majors’ pursuit of excellent, ethical, and engaged academic work. Interestingly, our findings align with the American Psychological Association’s principles for a quality undergraduate education, as well as the national organization’s guidelines for implementing a distinguished undergraduate program in psychology.

Over the years, we’ve been fortunate to be able to share our successes (and lessons learned) through publications in scholarly, peer-reviewed journals. In addition, we hope that these data will inform programmatic and curricular developments as we strive to offer undergraduates a distinguished program of study in psychology.

Jennifer: Thinking back on our efforts, I would say there has been an ebb and flow between promoting Good Work to a wide audience across campus and learning more about Good Work within our specific department of Psychology. I would say the Bloomsburg University Good Work initiative started as a university-wide effort; we wanted the Good Work message to reach as many students and faculty/staff members as possible. We worked through several years of revisions as we created an online Good Work-inspired module that incoming first-year students complete before coming to campus. I’m happy to say that the first-year module is now a permanent part of first-year orientation to BU. We also worked several years on creating an initiative website, with resources for students and faculty/staff members. As the initiative progressed, we found some of what we were doing to promote Good Work to a wide audience was difficult to sustain. We’ve had to cut back on some parts, such as organizing Good Work-inspired workshops for first-year students and offering presentations to our faculty/staff colleagues. That was when we started to focus our energy on researching factors that motivate and challenge Good Work in our Psychology majors. Now that we have that information, I think we might move our initiative back out to a broader audience now that we have new information to share.

Q: Can you share a memorable moment, story, or realization from your work over the years?

Mary Katherine: One of the most memorable moments on this journey occurred years ago when Jennifer and I attended a meeting with high-level administrators from the Office of Academic Affairs and the Office of Student Affairs. One of the administrators recognized that the broadly applicable concept of Good Work created a unique opportunity to bridge Academic Affairs and Student Affairs in higher education. It was an important “all in” moment.

Jennifer: I always get excited when I mention Good Work to students and they remember learning about it through the first-year online module. I specifically remember one time that Mary Katherine and I were getting coffee on campus: we were talking about Good Work, and a couple of students overheard us. The students recognized what we were talking about and told us how they found the Good Work message to be inspiring. We were thrilled!

Q: How does the GoodWork Initiative fit into your professional interests? Why does it resonate for you?

Mary Katherine: I have long held that the mission of higher education is to educate for purpose. I agree with Bill Damon that good workers are often people of purpose. To the extent that we are able to assist young men and women in identifying their aspirations and activities that align with their self-selected personal/professional/civic goals, we have achieved part of the mission of higher education. The mission, however, is not complete without also fostering an understanding of and competence in pursuing purpose vis-a-vis the three Es (excellence, ethics, engagement) of the Good Work model.

Jennifer: Ethics has always been important to me, and the Good Work model provides a great framework for conversations about ethical behavior. I hope to continue to find ways to increase ethical work on campus through the BU Good Work Initiative.

Q: How do you see students reacting to the GoodWork Initiative?

Mary Katherine: One of our mottos is, “No one rises to low expectations.” The three Es of the Good Work model, when explained in clear, concrete ways, as well as through case studies and students’ own anecdotes, sets the bar high. Undergraduates report being inspired by the challenge to pursue academic Good Work; empowered by having clear expectations for their performance as a member of our academic community, and grateful for the opportunity to reflect on the quality of their own academic work. About 2 years ago, our department, college, and university approved a Good Work-inspired upper-division psychology course which may be taken in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the psychology major or minor. A permanent addition to the University’s course catalog, PSYCH 327 Positive Psychology is offered at least one per year, and it enrolls up to 30 students per section. The students seem to have an insatiable desire to learn more about this topic, often commenting that they wish they had taken the course earlier in their academic careers.

Jennifer: Our research findings have shown time and again that students find value in learning about Good Work. However, I do worry that our students only have one guaranteed exposure to the Good Work message through the embedded online module for first-year orientation. It is a module that students complete in addition to many other modules and requirements before starting at Bloomsburg University. It would be easy for the Good Work message to be lost. Mary Katherine and I will be working this year to find ways to embed the Good Work message into other university-wide initiatives.

Q: What do you hope that students take away from their participation?

Mary Katherine: I hope that students develop a habit of reflection and an understanding of the importance of periodically considering anew what it means to do academic Good Work within their respective discipline. I want them to know that they have an obligation to look up from the path they are on and recognize that they can determine whether they continue walking down this path or pivot in a new direction. In terms of engagement, “What really matters to me and why? What brings me a sense of enjoyment or fulfillment?” In terms of excellence, “What do I know or do really well? How do I know that my work is exceptional?” In terms of ethics, “To what extent am I using my knowledge or skills to elevate others (family members, colleagues, neighbors) or to contribute in a meaningful way to institutions with which I am affiliated (my school or workplace) or to society as a whole? In other words, how does my work benefit the good?”

Jennifer: I hope they gain a framework for examining their own and others’ work. I also hope that students see the value of the Good Work message and infuse excellence, ethics, and engagement into their life-long personal and professional pursuits.

Q: What challenges or puzzles are you currently facing?

Mary Katherine: Our biggest challenge is how to embed the message more fully into curricular and extracurricular activities across the University. It is challenging to find a group of individuals to take the mantle and embed the message of Good Work into existing programming or daily practices. Unfortunately, the perpetuation of the message of Good Work is sometimes lost in the day-to-day business and business of University life. In addition, it has been challenging to preserve the integrity of the Good Work message. For example, the concept of Good Work is sometimes misinterpreted through different constituencies’ idiosyncratic translations of each of the Es or misrepresented through well-meaning attempts to inform undergraduates about this “heady” topic through edutainment (education + entertainment). One way to counter these challenges may be to regularly profile and showcase role models of Good Work at our University (e.g. current students, faculty, staff, or alumni). We fully understand the challenge of this task, as good workers tend not to seek or enjoy being in the spotlight.

Jennifer: Faculty members at our university have a heavy teaching load (4 courses per semester) and everyone (including us!) is so busy. It’s difficult to find the time to keep old initiatives going and even harder to find the time to get new initiatives started. We were able to build a team of Good Work advocates on campus in the first few years of the initiative, but it was challenging to maintain those relationships. We had hoped faculty members would embed Good Work messages into their courses but also understand that people may not have a lot of flexibility in terms of the content of their courses. It is also possible that faculty and staff on campus have infused the Good Work message into their courses, but we are unaware of it.

Q: Where do you see the GoodWork Initiative going in the next few years? What is your vision for the future?

Mary Katherine: I would like the work that we have done on identifying psychology majors’ motivators and challenges to academic good work to continue informing curricular and extracurricular programmatic developments in our department. Our first attempts at studying these motivators and challenges have left us with more questions than answers and a program of research for years to come. In addition, any programs that are designed and implemented as a result of these data would require assessment over the long term. Ultimately, I can imagine sharing our research methodology (measures, procedures, coding rubrics), findings, and research-informed developments with other departments at the University.

I also am in the process of taking the message of Good Work into the community vis-à-vis elementary school and middle school-based programming.

Jennifer: After spending the past few years researching factors that motivate and challenge Psychology majors’ pursuit of Good Work, I think we will move our focus outward to the campus community again.

Q: What makes the concept of “Good Work” attractive to an institution of higher education like Bloomsburg University?

Mary Katherine: In my opinion, the Good Work model is attractive because of its versatility. Whether a student subscribes to the transactional mission of higher education (i.e. prepare for the workplace) or the transformative mission of higher education (i.e. personal/civic development), the message of Good Work is relevant to and congruent with their goal of obtaining a baccalaureate degree.

I also think the concept of Good Work is attractive insofar as it helps students to more fully appreciate the expectations of the University’s constituents. That is, students who are admitted to Bloomsburg University have been “stamped for success” by all those who contribute to the operations of the institution. The Good Work message conveys to students that they are expected to work hard… not to obtain incentives, but to gain expertise and, with it, credibility. They are expected to make good choices… not to avoid trouble, but to elevate others. They are expected to get involved… not for a line on the resume, but to achieve a sense of fulfillment that comes with doing what you do best every day. Just as our students have every reason to believe that faculty, staff, and administrators are committed to pursuing Good Work, the University’s constituents have every right to expect that students will pursue Good Work for the good of the Good.

Q: What advice might you offer someone who might be interested in starting a similar initiative at their institution?

Mary Katherine: A bottoms-up approach (department-level) seems to be more manageable, productive, and fulfilling.

Jennifer: Find a small group of committed people to work with. Find high impact ways to reach as broad an audience as possible.

Conversation with Mary Katherine Waibel Duncan of Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

By Danny Mucinskas

Dr. Mary Katherine Waibel Duncan is a Professor of Psychology at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Over the past several years, Duncan and her colleagues Jennifer Johnson and Joan Miller have spearheaded the Good Work Initiative at Bloomsburg University, integrating ideas and frameworks from the Good Work Project into freshmen orientation sessions and classes throughout the university. In February 2015, Duncan was named the Joan and Fred Miller Distinguished Professor of Good Work, the first Good Work-related professorship of which we are aware. We recently caught up with her to talk about how Bloomsburg’s Good Work initiative is evolving and continuing to influence students.

Q: How has the Good Work Initiative at Bloomsburg University developed in the past year?

Mary Katherine: First of all, I am excited and honored that I have been named as the first Distinguished Professor of Good Work at Bloomsburg University thanks to the generosity of Joan and Fred Miller, who created the position with an endowed gift. It was such an unexpected and welcome surprise. I hope to use this occasion and the funds available to me to give Bloomsburg University students opportunities for pivotal, transformative experiences. For example, we would really love to bring students to future Good Project or Project Zero conferences to expose them to the ideas that have come out of these endeavors and inspire them to think about what Good Work means in their own experiences. Students can then translate what they have learned into presentations or projects that benefit BU and the surrounding community.

Also, somewhat unexpectedly, we have been given the chance yet again to facilitate Bloomsburg’s summer assignment for incoming freshmen, and we have of course chosen a Good Work-themed assignment based on the 3 Es (Excellence, Ethics, and Engagement). This is our fourth year organizing the assignment, meaning that all students at Bloomsburg in 2015-2016 will have been exposed to Good Work. My colleagues and I reach about 2000 incoming students each year, and we refer all of these students to the Good Work Initiative website we have created, which is a great source of material. We have not looked into how many students have visited the site, but we hope that they continue to return to this site to learn about campus-based resources that have been designed to support their pursuit of Good Work. Through the Good Work Initiative, we want students to reflect upon and to better understand the challenges and opportunities they have to do Good Work as undergraduates and beyond.

Q: What are the biggest challenges to doing Good Work for students, faculty members, and administrators at Bloomsburg?

Mary Katherine: Although we have seen progress in how our students conceptualize Good Work, there is still more we can do to foster deeper connections. We recently surveyed sophomores and seniors in the Department of Psychology at Bloomsburg about their pursuit of Good Work, and we found that while respondents mentioned values/beliefs as motivators, a sense of purpose was not discussed, and little thought was given to horizontal support from peers. We also noted that students face obstacles to doing Good Work, mostly in the form of impediments to short-term goals, including time constraints, the stress of heavy course loads, and social distractions. We are thinking about how we can help students overcome these challenges.

We’re also encouraged by the number of faculty who have integrated Good Work into their courses. Faculty have led the workshops during our Welcome Weekend (freshmen orientation) sessions. When professors tell students that they also struggle to make sense of what is “right” in particular situations, it makes them more personable and less intimidating. We want students to feel like professors are approachable resources for help and information.

Q: How will Bloomsburg’s Good Work Initiative be expanding in the coming months and years?

Mary Katherine: We have been thinking about ways to continue the influence of Good Work at Bloomsburg beyond the Summer Assignment and Welcome Weekend workshop by injecting it into existing programs and courses, which will allow us to continue to have an impact on students throughout their college experience. In the past, we have hung Good Work posters in dorms and campus buildings as daily reminders of our shared goals and ideals. Some professors have placed references to Good Work in their syllabi after coming to talks that Jennifer Johnson or I have done on the topic. We also have students who have approached us, particularly in the psychology department, to ask about how they can do Good Work in certain tricky or ethically “grey” situations. Furthermore, we have a few students every year who do research and presentations on Good Work as a part of senior capstone projects. Eventually, it would be interesting to follow up with alumnae about how the program has had an effect on their personal and professional lives after graduation.

I am happy to say that we are in the process of tying Good Work to the meaning of our school motto “Unleash Your Inner Husky” (the husky is Bloomsburg’s mascot). When someone asks, “What does it mean to be a Husky at Bloomsburg?”, we want the answer to be tied to the definition of Good Work: Excellence, Ethics, and Engagement. We are planning on making videos of outstanding students who embody Good Work and playing these on the monitors throughout campus as exemplars for other students. There are many other avenues we can pursue to further integrate Good Work into the Bloomsburg experience as well. In the meantime, I will continue to embed the message of Good Work into my on- and off-campus speaking engagements.

The GoodWork Bloomsburg Initative

by Joan Miller, Mary Katherine Waibel, Jennifer Johnson

When Dr. Howard Gardner visited Bloomsburg University in the Fall 2010, he spoke about the value of self-reflection on what it means to do Good Work as persons, workers, and citizens. Inspired by Dr. Gardner’s visit and informed by the GoodWork Toolkit, we sought to explore undergraduate students’ concepts of what it means to do Good Work in higher education and to strengthen the culture of Good Work on our campus. Through small group discussions, we hoped to 1) explore students’ concepts of what it means to do Good Work as college students, 2) enrich students’ definitions of Good Work as work that is of the highest quality (i.e., excellent), socially responsible (i.e., ethical), and meaningful (i.e., engagement), 3) engage students in an examination of their role models of Good Work, and 4) encourage students to reflect upon how they have exhibited Good Work during their first few months at Bloomsburg University.

As we developed the BU Good Work Initiative in consultation with the GoodWork Team at Project Zero, we sought possible outlets for piloting our small group discussions. Without hesitation, the Director of the University’s ACT 101/Educational Opportunities Program, Dr. Irvin Wright, invited us to pilot the BU Good Work Initiative with incoming first-year students enrolled in the program. ACT 101/EOP assists students who are at a financial, cultural, social and/or educational disadvantage in making a successful transition to Bloomsburg University. We expected thatdata from this group of historically under-represented students would provide a unique perspective and valuable information about incoming first-year undergraduates’ concepts of Good Work and inform future endeavors to promote Good Workamong all students at Bloomsburg University.

The BU Good Work Initiative included 140 students. All students completed a pre-program assessment in which they described what it means to do Good Work as college students and wrote about examples of Good Work at Bloomsburg University. Following the pre-program assessment, half of the students were randomly assigned to an experimental group. The experimental group was further split into small discussion groups (approximately 10 students per group).  Each small discussion group was led by two advanced students (Teaching Assistants from the Department of Psychology’s mass lecture General Psychology course) and a faculty/staff facilitator. Students assigned to the experimental group participated in a 6-week series of 50-minute discussions about the three Es of Good Work—Excellence, Ethics, and Engagement. During the first two weeks (Sessions 1 and 2), students discussed what it means to do excellent work as a college student, role models of excellence, and examples of how they have demonstrated academic excellence during their past three months at the University. During the next two weeks (Sessions 3 and 4), students discussed what it means to do ethical work as a college student, role models of ethical behavior, and examples of how they demonstrated ethical behavior during their past three months at the University. During the final two weeks (Sessions 5 and 6), students discussed what it means to do engaged work as a college student, role models of engagement, and examples of how they demonstrated engagement during their past three months at the University. The other half of the students (i.e., the control group) remained in their regularly scheduled University Seminar course and did not participate in small group discussions about Good Work. Upon completion of the 6-week series of small group discussions, the experimental and control groups reunited for a post-program assessment.

Analysis of the pre-program data revealed that few incoming first-year students described Good Work as work that is of the highest quality, socially responsible, or meaningful. Instead, students tended to describe Good Work as effortful (i.e., trying one’s hardest) and empathic (i.e., helping another person). Although post-program data showed that students assigned to the experimental group had not yet incorporated the concepts of Excellence or Engagement into their definitions of Good Work, data did reveal that students who participated in small group discussions about Good Work had begun to include the concept of Ethics in their understanding of what it means to do Good Work as an undergraduate student. Students who were assigned to the experimental group also noted the overall value of participating in the small group discussions. Comments included the following:

The value of participating in the Good Work Initiative is that we know how to be an ethical student and a student of excellence.

Participating in Good Work Initiative has made me realize that I needed to pick up my slack and do the right thing.

You learn a lot that you didn’t know already and it opens your eyes to role models in your life.

A forthcoming manuscript will detail the BU Good Work Initiative’s curriculum, research methodology, and findings. We have been pleased to find several published papers that validate our findings and we hope that our efforts will add to the growing body of literature on promoting Good Work on college campuses.

During the 2012-2013 academic year, the Bloomsburg University Good Work Team will continue to pursue its mission to strengthen the culture of Good Work on our campus by increasing individuals’ awareness of what it means to do Good Work, identifying role models of Good Work, encouraging self-reflection on Good Work, and supporting Good Work wherever it exists on our campus and in our broader community. Data from this initial study have informed not only the content but also the format of how we will introduce the concept of Good Work to incoming first-year students during the Fall 2012. Data from this study also have sparked a number of other lines of inquiry and best practices related to advancing Good Work in higher education.  More on that to come…

Bloomsburg University Good Work Initiative Experience

by Elizabeth Lucas

Four years ago my parents made the bittersweet decision to move from Costa Rica to Pennsylvania after 19 years. Here and there I asked myself if getting an education in the USA was truly better than one I could be getting back at home. Most of the time the answer was “no, not really.” It was not until my senior year that I finally realized how privileged I was as I would not have been given the same opportunities and experiences in Costa Rica as I had here in the USA. One of the main reasons for this was my involvement with GoodWork.

The Bloomsburg GoodWork Initiative took off during the Fall 2011. Psychology Teaching Assistants (myself included) were asked to participate and run small discussion sessions with half of the ACT101 incoming freshmen (students who are at a financial, cultural, social or educational disadvantage). The sessions ran for 6 weeks. Two sessions were dedicated to each of the 3 E’s of GoodWork. We encouraged students to reflect and talk about what each E meant to them, who were their role models for that E, and how they as students have demonstrated that E. Students were very much engaged and participated even more enthusiastically than I would have imagined.

Teaching Assistants would meet after each session and discuss if we needed to modify anything and compare notes on how students did that day. We had some common threads between all groups. When the students were asked to define Excellence and Engagement they had a good grasp on the meaning, but when they were asked to give an example they would sometimes say something like: “going to all of your classes.” In regards to Ethics, students had a hard time defining it, giving examples and for the most part they had all partaken in unethical behaviors. Personally, what was most shocking was that some of the students were not able to come up with role models in their lives. As Teaching Assistants, we encouraged students to explore these ideas further and talked about how these ideas could be applied in their next four years as students.

I hope that there was as much value to these discussion sessions for each of the students that participated as there was for me. The questions that we asked them every week were also questions that I was asking myself. I think that as human beings we go through the motions of every day life without taking the time to reflect about what it is that we are doing or the purpose to it. Some of us might know what we want to do “when we grow up” and we want to be the best we can be at it. For others, we might still be trying to find that passion that will motivate us to wake up and go to work every morning. Some of us might already know the answer to those two, but we are trying to figure out a way to do it the right way because we are conscious of the demands society has.

It was because of that initial participation, that when Dr. Jennifer Johnson asked if any one of the Teaching Assistants would like to take GoodWork any further as an independent study, I jumped right in. At first, my focus was to look at what worked and what did not work during this first initiative and finding improvements for future GoodWork activities. I created surveys for everyone who participated in the sessions (Teaching Assistants, Facilitators and students) and from there, I focused on areas that needed improvement. I presented a poster at the Eastern Psychological Association conference in March 2012.

In the spring of 2012, I also began to work with Dr. Jennifer Johnson, Dr. Mary Katherine Duncan and Dr. Joan Miller. We met weekly to assess another set of data from students and kept thinking of ways to keep GoodWork moving forward at Bloomsburg University. We were granted permission to create the Freshman Orientation Summer Reading for the incoming students in the fall of 2012. One of the videos I proposed is going to be used for this assignment. The four of us along with Dan Haverstock (GoodWork independent study student for the upcoming year) were also invited to attend a meeting at Project Zero with Wendy Fischman, Lynn Barendsen, Margot Locker and Howard Gardner. It was of great pleasure to finally meet the people whose papers and research I had been reading about all year. It was also incredibly rewarding to share everything that we had worked on so hard during the last year. We were given great feedback and suggestions for the ideas we had for moving forward.

Previously I mentioned that if I had not gone to college in the USA I would have not gotten involved with GoodWork. I might have not been given some of the opportunities and learned as much about myself as I would have back at home. GoodWork allowed me to reflect on what it means to do GoodWork as a student and a young professional and how it affects our daily life. It got me thinking about what kind of professional I want to be and what values I want to take with me. My involvement in the discussion sessions taught me how to lead a group and improved my ability to present research and talk in public. I learned that even though I was only a student, my opinion was important, I could work hand in hand with professors I considered my mentors in order to create something bigger and make a difference.

I’ve successfully graduated from Bloomsburg and will be starting the next chapter of my life as a graduate student at Temple University in the fall. I will be taking everything that I have learned these last four years and especially this last one and applying it to my life as a student there and eventually my professional life. I am hoping that in some way I can still stay involved with GoodWork at Bloomsburg University and perhaps start GoodWork awareness at Temple.

Howard Gardner Visits Bloomsburg

by Joan Miller

I first learned about the GoodWork Project five years ago. Since then I have collaborated with researchers in the nursing profession to learn about the meaning of good work among nurses in local, regional, and international settings. I have integrated the theory of good work in courses across disciplines at Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA.

Recently, Dr. Howard Gardner delivered the Provost Lecture at Bloomsburg University to an audience of over 1500 faculty and students. Dr. Gardner provided an overview of the theory of multiple intelligences. He transitioned seamlessly into the theory of good work. Following the lecture students approached Dr. Gardner to ask questions about both theories. Students grasped the theory of multiple intelligences and the need for both individualized and pluralized teaching. They understand that individuals have intelligences that cannot be measured solely by psychometric tests. However, they struggled with the notion of what it takes to become the kind of people we want to be and to build the society in which we want to live.

At breakfast the following morning, conversation with students turned to a discussion of what it means to falsify a resume. One student stated she would want to present herself just as she is, with enthusiasm for her profession and no falsification. She wants to be accepted for the person she is. Another student stated she would not be able to ‘put her head on the pillow’ at the end of the day if she falsified a resume. However, she is concerned about how hard it is to adhere to high ideals when others in the work place do not. She stated, “At the end of the day, a young person can return home and even there witness compromised work and values. What is a young person to do?” This student seemed desperate for a role model.

How are we preparing the next generation? Have we abandoned the role of the trusted role model? Have we failed as educators or is there hope for a better future among those committed to preparing the next generation of professionals to assume roles as responsible citizens? What does it take?

Howard Gardner’s Provost Lecture