University Social responsibility: methodological development proposal

The Social Responsibility at Universities (SRU) has begun to receive attention since
this first decade of the century. In fact, by reference to the final declaration of the World
Conference of Higher Education of UNESCO in 19981, there are identified some
aspects related to the social mission of higher education organizations like "educate
highly qualified graduates and responsible citizens, giving students the opportunity to
develop their full own abilities with a sense of social responsibility (...) ", for which
higher education should increase its contribution to the development of the whole
education system, among other actions by developing curricula and educational
research. In the final declaration of the conference of 20092, once again UNESCO
reaffirms the duty of higher education not only to provide skills, but to contribute to the
formation of citizens endowed with ethical principles, committed to building peace,
rights human and democratic values.

Both conferences deserve our attention on the points raised, being remarkable the duty
to educate students in order to become responsible professionals, concerned about the
future of society. It seems necessary that the universities include studies about the
profile of students entering higher education institutions, and promote research how
and in what way these institutions of higher education contribute through the curriculum
for educate professionals with ethical guidance to society.

State of the art on Social Responsibility of Universities

Since the beginning of S. XXI some universities have begun to work and develop the
concept and implications of Social Responsibility of Universities (SRU), either jointly or
individually. It is worth mentioning the case of the Talloires network3 that includes
universities in different countries and in their statement (2005) focuses its commitment
to promote responsibility among "a deep sense of social responsibility and a
commitment to the welfare of society."

In the field of SRU in Latin American universities, one of the most influence authors is
François Vallaeys4, consultant in the Ethics, Social Capital and Development chapter
of IADB5; which model of USR is based on impact's management that universities have
in society. His proposals are present in most university studies and plans on USR.

In terms of initiatives, is highlighted the process of AUSJAL6 developed internationally

between institutions members of Jesuit university network, the Chilean national project
Universidad Construye País7, the regional initiative of the Social Councils forum of

1
http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/wche/declaration_eng.htm
2
http://www.unesco.org/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/ED/pdf/WCHE_2009/FINAL%20COMMUNIQUE%20WCHE%20
2009.pdf
3
http://www.tufts.edu/talloiresnetwork/
4
http://blog.pucp.edu.pe/eticarsu
5
http://iadb.org/
6
http://www.ausjal.org/
7
http://www.construyepais.cl/
andalusian public universities8 and the cases of Francisco de Vitoria University9 and
the University of Valladolid10.

At methodological level, different networks of universities, (AUSJAL11, 2009;

Universidad Construye País12, 2006), and some universities (De la Calle, 2010;
Responsibility Factory Member of the University of Valladolid, 2009) have started
research on SRU, and it has began the development of assessment tools, from
different perspective but sharing common standards. In addition, six universities in
Chile and the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria have introduced a matter of social
responsibility in the curriculum programs of different studies.

We focus attention on the project Universidad Construye País, having been launched
since 2001 among different universities, both public and private secular and Catholic-
oriented, in order to expand the concept and practice of social responsibility, it suppose
the only national experience about USR and that brings the longest-running study of
SRU. Basic in its development, according to the promoter of the project from the
Catholic University of Temuco, Ms. Jiménez de la Jara13 (2007) was that in the process
each university should be free to carry out their processes of understanding and
analysis its social responsibility with emphasis on the values and ethics, and that each
University had to explain their priorities and work in line with the statement.

The universities of UCP assume "University Social Responsibility as the ability of the
University as an institution to disseminate and implement a set of principles and values,
through four key processes: management, teaching, research and extension (UCP,
2002)14. Jiménez (2007) explain the importance to create appropriate contexts for
people in order to develop an appropriate management of human capital, being one of
the fundamental ideas from this organizational management approach is to build
dialogic spaces, and the statement of the commitments undertaken.

Jiménez (2007) says that this approach carries the implication that values are learned
from the emotion-motivation, the experience or experiment with them and then thought
and argument, and therefore universities must identify and commit to the values are
willing to live and which are key to their development process since "The statements of
principles and values do not guarantee the generation of commitments." (UCP, 2006,
p. 131) Jiménez highlights that "you can not manage what you do not communicate,
communicate what is not measured, measure what is not defined and define what is
not understood." (UCP, 2006, p.109)

From this perspective, it takes into account the analysis presented by De la Cuesta and
Fernandez (2008) in the conclusions of the "I Jornada Iberoamericana de
Responsabilidad Social de la Universidad"15 about the social responsibility of

8
http://www.rsuniversitaria.org/
9
http://www.ufv.es
10
http://www.uva.es/cocoon_uva/impe/uva/contenido?pag=/contenidos/serviciosAdministrativos/otrosServicios/secretari
adoAsunstosSociales/RS_UVa&idSeccion=117298&idMenus=
11
http://www.ausjal.org/sitios/rsu/documentos/manual.pdf
12
http://www.rsuniversitaria.org/documentos/UCP%202006.pdf
13
http://www.guni-rmies.net/news/detail.php?id=1135
14
http://www.rsuniversitaria.org/documentos/UCP%202002.pdf
15
http://www.ecosfron.org/noticiapdf/Conclusiones_Jornada_RSU_def.pdf
universities to the members of the University community: Professors, Researchers,
employees and students; which highlighted the problem of representation of interest
groups in the governing councils of universities, and the low participation of students. In
this regard the lack of participation / representation of students in the councils, De la
Cuesta and Fernández mentioned that if they are not participating is that they probably
don't feel part of the university project, "noting that it is necessary to detect and analyze
the expectations of the stakeholders of the university, with an aim of clarifying and
integration into a common project with the whole members of the university community.

Research of University values: challenges and proposal for a framework of an

empathetic University.

It is a common factor in the universities that are working toward SRU, speak of values.
In this sense if we consider the factor of low student participation in representative
bodies, and non-existence in universities of a systematic assessment of the values that
are acquired during formation, we have a goal for research on how universities are
transmitting their values in the formation of students.

It is possible to work from the scenario that the low involvement of students in
representative bodies may be because they do not identify as belonging to the
university community; so regarding on individualistic values, the University may
represent just a tool for obtaining a degree, which in this case, gathering the words of
Jiménez (2007), the university could not define their values without knowing the values
of its members at professors, employees and students.

Martí et al (2007)16, has researched on the inclusion in Universities of volunteer

activities, from a participative action research methodology, and the importance to form
research social communities from the perspective that voluntary action must be
reflective about its purpose and implications.

Currently Martí and Martí (2010)17 have initiated an investigation focusing on the
psychological variables that influence a predisposition to social responsibility, picking
up the basis of work carried out by Navarro (2008)18 who defined it as socially
responsible behavior that you have in your base the intention of mutual benefit. It would
not be enough to talk about social responsibility, if it is not exercised and realized it
through a moral conduct.

This approach to social responsibility analyzed from context of moral psychology is

approached from the study of values and ideals that can provide governing beliefs
about what should be done, and therefore, the attitudes and behavior (Kristiansen and
Hotte, 1996).

The relationship between values focusing on socially responsible behavior can be

studied from Schwartz (1992), who defines values as "“desirable transituational goals,
varying in importance that serve as guiding principles in the life of a person or other
social entity " identifying 10 motivational types of values, organized into two
16
http://www.revistapolis.cl/polis%20final/18/resp.htm
17
http://www.uv.es/noudise/ (June 2010)
18
http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2573403
dimensions: self-promotion (individualistic behaviors) versus self-transcendence
(collectivist behaviors), and openness versus conservation. Schwartz (1992, 2009)
characterizes values as beliefs linked inextricably to affect, that motivate action,
transcend specific actions and situations and guiding the selection or evaluation of
actions and policies.

Assuming the perspective that in values are converging emotions and cognitions, prior
to action, we hypothesize that behind the values we can relate to empathy, which is
receiving attention from various fields, and was defined by Davis (1983) as the set of
constructs included in the observed experiences of another, including affective and
non-affective responses. Davis's work on empathy is of our particular interest to the
study of social responsibility, because focusing its emotional and cognitive variables,
opens the way to teach empathy.

Navarro (UCP; 2006) has indicated that empathy is part of the socially responsible
behavior. Therefore, we believe that empathy can be the basis of social responsibility
and should be matter of research in order to know if that low empathy or not training
empathic skills, could involve less orientation towards society and its problems, which
can convert the university into a tool for personal achievement goals and self-
promotion, rather than a community-oriented professional development to improve
society.

On a research on college about values and empathy, Helkama & Miiry (2001) 19
reported that empathy is related to the Human Values Model of Schwartz, values of
universalism varies on students from different studies remarking that exist differences
of empathy and values.

From the base of the study from neuroscience, Vignemont and Singer (2006) indicated
that people empathizes with others when there is a state that is isomorphic to the
emotional state of others, and may have been elicited by observing or imagining the
other person's affective state. If socially responsible actions are reasoned from
empathy, can be performed without the proximity of those targeted, using imagination
or adoption of perspective; also empathy refers to socially responsible behaviors
towards the environment as refers Sevillano (2006).

With this study of the state of the art, from the interdepartmental Ph.D. "Personal
development and social participation"20 we have begun the "Study on university social
responsibility, values and empathy from the perspective of gender role," whose
purpose is to establish whether empathy and values are the variables to be considered
in the higher education system to promote social responsibility as they move into
different career course.

This research is open to participation of new universities, will have the participation of
universities in Colombia, Chile and Peru to research cross-culturally about the effect of
the interrelationship between education, students' values and empathy, are the
variables which become socially responsible behaviors; and study if universities are
achieving the challenge of education transmit values that say represent them.

19
http://www.choixdecarriere.com/pdf/5873/MyyryHelkama-2001.pdf
20
http://www.uv.es
The question being asked is whether the university management is performed from
cognition and emotion, Can we speak about a university empathetic toward herself and
to society?

We start the research with an overall theme such as Universities social responsibility,
which must be worked in the specific context of each university and faculty. This
requires dialogue, as pointed out by Jiménez (2007), and so we have set a
collaborative wiki21 space and a virtual classroom22 with research tools for our research
proposal.

Innovation in research of conceptualization and development of methodological

approaches will require new spaces to dialogue and ICT may be the most appropriate
structuring tool.

21
http://universidades-responsables.org/mediawiki/index.php/Página_Principal
22
http://aulavirtual.uv.es/dotlrn/clubs/investigacinresponsabilidadsocialuniversitaria/