Values

 

"KU Wins Grant to Increase Impact of IRISE Values

KU won a nearly $700,000 grant to help raise awareness and extend the impact of KU’s IRISE Culture Charter for the Lawrence campus.  The three-year, $699,287 grant, titled “Character Development at KU: The IRISE Virtues Initiative,” from the Educating Character Initiative at Wake Forest University, will support KU’s efforts to bring greater awareness to the IRISE values, weave them into the fiber of the university culture and encourage KU community members to cultivate character within themselves. The grant follows a $46,040 capacity-building grant KU received last year from the Educating Character Initiative, titled “KU IRISE: Values Adoption Initiative.”   The IRISE Culture Charter was developed in 2023 to articulate five shared values — integrity, respect, innovation, stewardship and excellence — Jayhawks embody as members of the university community. A committee co-chaired by university governance and administration leaders developed the IRISE Culture Charter and values with input from KU community members.  “This latest grant will build on our initial work to develop a culture of character focused on the IRISE values as integral to the identity of being a Jayhawk,” said Nancy Snow, professor of philosophy and co-principal investigator on the grants." Somehow, I just get skeptical of this. All the values are great in and of themselves: who could be against them? But that someone is the problem.  The administration that threatens to call police on us when we are demonstrating for fair salaries is at the same time promoting these values in the abstract. It is virtue signaling with no real substance.