Community of Caring to call U. its home

WASHINGTON — One of the nation's foremost values-based education programs announced Thursday it is relocating its national offices from the nation's capital to the University of Utah where it will become the National Center for Community of Caring.

"We looked at other places, but clearly (Utah) was the best," said Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who pioneered the program through the Joseph P. Kennedy Foundation.

Many of the people who have worked in Shriver's Community of Caring over the years are with the U. Furthermore, 20 percent of the almost 1,000 Community of Caring schools around the country are located in Utah. Salt Lake Mayor Rocky Anderson even named the city a Community of Caring city.

"Our most active and dedicated people" are in Utah, said Shriver, who also founded Special Olympics.

In making the announcement at the Washington, D.C., Marriott Hotel, Shriver and U. President Michael Young said the center will enhance its emphasis on the training of teachers in value-based education. That focus requires a university setting with research capabilities.

They agreed the U's education program, particularly its special education program, is among the best in the country, and the marriage of the university and the center is a perfect match.

Young called it a privilege to host the renowned program, and he pledged the university's resources to further the center's mission and to expand its capacities to help students "make their lives and the lives of their classmates better. It is a program that has been enhancing education for 20 years," Young said.

In developing the program, Shriver consulted ethicists, researchers, physicians and teachers to define those qualities that strengthen character and, in turn, strengthen the nation. "These qualities are defined as respect, responsibility, caring, trust and family values upon which our nation was built," Shriver said.

According to Kristin Fink, who has been executive director of Community of Caring in Washington, D.C., character education greatly improves academic performance.

"Students have higher grade-point averages and enjoy safer, more inclusive school communities, and respectful school environments," said Fink, who will now become the director of programs for the center. "The core values help students to be better and stronger students, citizens and human beings. Today's educators realize empathy must be taught, practiced and fostered."

Shriver, the sister of the late President John F. Kennedy, believes children who embrace those core values will not only make the country better, they will make the world better.

"Global change is a tall order," she added, "but we must start somewhere."

Shriver said she expects the center will not only train teachers but will bring thousands of new schools into the program in the years ahead.

A key component of the program, originally founded at John Hopkins University, is its focus on the inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities in all aspects of school life. Because of that focus, the center will be housed in the university's Department of Special Education.

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