The Center for the 4th and 5th Rs
(Respect and Responsibility)
The Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, located in the School of Education at the State University of New York at Cortland, was founded in 1994 by education professor Dr. Thomas Lickona. Its staff includes Dr. Lickona, director; Marthe Seales, administrative assistant; graduate and undergraduate students at SUNY Cortland; and College and community volunteer workers.
The Center:
- Co-sponsors the Smart & Good Schools Initiative in partnership with the Institute for Excellence & Ethics (IEE). The mission of a Smart & Good School is integrating excellence and ethics: developing performance character (doing our best work) and moral character (doing the right thing) within an Ethical Learning Community.
- Offers an annual Smart & Good Schools Summer Institute, which has trained more than 4,500 principals, teachers, and other educators from 35 states and 20 countries.
- Promotes a comprehensive approach to character education that has been widely adopted in the field. This approach uses every phase of school life—the teacher’s example, the content of the curriculum, the instructional process, the rigor of academic standards, the handling of rules and discipline, and the school’s intellectual and moral climate—as opportunities for character development.
- Publishes Excellence & Ethics: The Education Letter of the Smart & Good Schools Initiative, featuring K-12 practices that help all educational stakeholders do their best work (performance character) and do the right thing (moral character).
- Provides guidance and resources for assessment of character education.
- Conducts research on character education, including the national study, Smart & Good High Schools: Integrating Excellence and Ethics for Success in School, Work, and Beyond. The 227-page report on this study was disseminated in September 2005 to 25,000 high school principals, public and private.
- Conducts on-site school and district trainings on “Smart & Good Schools.”
- Creates programs that help schools implement the Smart & Good vision
and is developing a national network of Smart & Good Schools.
Center Staff and Partner Organization Staff
Thomas Lickona, Ph.D.
Dr. Thomas Lickona is a developmental psychologist and Professor of Education at the State University of New York at Cortland, where he has done award-winning work in teacher education. He currently directs the Center for the Fourth and Fifth Rs (Respect and Responsibility) and co-directs the Smart & Good Schools Initiative. He has also been a visiting professor at Boston and Harvard Universities.
A past president of the Association for Moral Education, Dr. Lickona serves on the Board of Directors of the Character Education Partnership and the advisory councils of Character Counts Coalition and Medical Institute for Sexual Health.
Dr. Lickona is a frequent consultant to schools on character education and a frequent speaker at conferences for teachers, parents, religious educators, and other groups concerned about the moral development of young people. He has lectured across the United States and around the world on the subject of fostering character development in the school and home.
Dr. Lickona holds a Ph.D. in psychology from the State University of New York at Albany and has done research on the growth of children’s moral reasoning. He has been named a State University of New York Faculty Exchange Scholar and the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the State University of New York at Albany.
His publications include a graduate text, Moral Development and Behavior (1976); a popular book for parents, Raising Good Children (1983); a book describing his 12-point character education program, Educating for Character: How Our Schools Can Teach Respect and Responsibility (1991); and a collection of essays by various authors, Character Development in Schools and Beyond (1992). Educating for Character has been praised as “the definitive work in the field” and was named winner of a 1992 Christopher Award for “affirming the highest values of the human spirit.” Another work, co-authored with his wife, Judith, and William Boudreau, M.D., is a book for young people, Sex, Love and You, on the benefits of saving sex for marriage (Ave Maria Press, 1994). His most recent books are Character Matters—How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues (2004) and Character Quotations (2004), co-authored with Dr. Matthew Davidson. Dr. Lickona’s recent work includes directing a two-year study of high school character education, and co-authoring with Dr. Matthew Davidson, Smart and Good High Schools: Developing Excellence and Ethics for Success in School, Work, and Beyond (2005).
Dr. Lickona’s work has been featured in the New York Times Magazine article cover story, “Teaching Johnny to be Good” (April 30, 1995); in two videos, “Character Education: Restoring Respect and Responsibility in our Schools” and “Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education” (National Professional Resources); and in a four-part video training series on character education (Quality Educational Media, Inc.) In 2001, the Character Education Partnership presented Dr. Lickona with the Sanford N. McDonnell Lifetime Achievement Award in Character Education.
Dr. Lickona has also been a guest on numerous radio and TV talk shows, including The Larry King Live Radio Show, Good Morning America, and Focus on the Family.
Dr. Lickona and his wife have two sons and thirteen grandchildren and live in Cortland, New York.
Tom Lickona, Ph.D.
Center for the 4th and 5th Rs
SUNY Cortland
P.O. Box 2000
Cortland, NY 13045
607-753-2456 phone
607-753-5980
fax
e-mail
Marthe Seales
Marthe Seales is office manager for the Center and co-editor of excellence & ethics. She coordinates the annual Smart & Good Schools Summer Institute in Character Education and maintains the web sites for the Center and the Smart & Good High Schools project. She has a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education and has completed a year of graduate work in the same field.
Marthe Seales
Center for the 4th and 5th Rs
SUNY Cortland
P.O. Box 2000
Cortland, NY 13045
607-753-2455 phone
607-753-5780 fax
e-mail
Institute for Excellence & Ethics (IEE)
(the Center's partner organization)
Matthew L. Davidson, Ph.D.
Matt Davidson is president and director of education for the Institute for Excellence and Ethics (IEE) in Fayetteville, NY, a non-profit organization working in partnership with the Center for the 4th & 5th Rs. Previously he was Research Director at the Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, where he co-authored the Smart & Good High Schools report with Tom Lickona. He is the co-director, also with Tom Lickona, of the Smart & Good Schools Initiative. Dr. Davidson is also co-author of the Character Education Evaluation Toolkit, published by the Character Education Partnership and Character Quotations.
Dr. Matthew Davidson
Institute for Excellence & Ethics
P.O. Box 189
Fayetteville, NY 13066
Ph: 315-559-4853 phone
Fax: 315-637-2361
E-mail
Debra Finn
Debra Finn was previously an administrative assistant at the Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, and is now office manager at the Institute for Excellence & Ethics.
Ph: (315) 677-8114
Fax: (315) 677-8167
Email
For other staff at the Institute for Excellence & Ethics, go to www.excellenceandethics.com.