What are the Anteater Virtues?

At UCI, we dedicate ourselves to offering students an educational experience that goes beyond teaching the specific facts and skills of a particular subject. Instead, we strive to provide a holistic education that helps students develop their intellectual character and become inquisitive, open-minded, and tenacious individuals. This is why we have developed the UCI Anteater Virtues Project, a campus-wide initiative designed to help students succeed both at UCI and in the wider world. The project revolves around the promotion of the Anteater Virtues, a set of intellectual character traits that we aim to cultivate on campus.

There are four Anteater Virtues, each crucial to the intellectual development of UCI students. They are curiosity, integrity, intellectual humility, and intellectual tenacity. Curiosity encourages students to seek knowledge and explore various intellectual interests and is central to all learning. Integrity pushes students to be honest and open and thereby avoid self-deceit and the deceit of others. This will help students to understand the importance of appropriate academic conduct. Intellectual humility reminds students to be open to new ideas, to respect the ideas of others, and to recognize their fallibility. This will help students avoid being dogmatic and dismissive of others, which is important to combating extremism on campus. Finally, intellectual tenacity bolsters students to keep pursuing an intellectual interest, even when they encounter obstacles or other challenges. Note that the pairing of intellectual humility and intellectual tenacity is particularly significant, as their compatibility helps students to appreciate that being intellectually humble does not mean that one must lack conviction in one’s views.

Each of these Anteater Virtues is an important character trait, and developing them will help students to prosper not only academically but also in their future endeavors, including in their interactions with others. This is the goal of the Anteater Virtues—to show our students that the value of the education we provide is not merely an excellent grounding in a particular subject; more importantly, it helps them develop as individuals who can thrive on whatever path they take.

The Anteater Virtues Modules

In order to promote the Anteater Virtues in the classroom, we have assembled a suite of online modules that are devoted to helping students to develop their understanding of these intellectual virtues and incorporate this understanding into their UCI learning experience. At present, these modules are organized into two groups: five introductory modules which explain each of the four Anteater Virtues and then a further seven advanced modules that build on the knowledge acquired in the introductory modules (a further group of ‘capstone’ modules are in development). All incoming UCI students take a selection of materials from the introductory modules as part of their orientation, so they will already have some familiarity with them. Topics for the advanced modules include ‘Intellectual Vice’, ‘Wisdom’, and ‘Intellectual Virtues in the Information Age’. Students must complete the introductory modules before moving onto the advanced modules. Each module takes around 1-2 hours to complete and is composed of videos and quizzes. The modules incorporate a variety of disciplinary and historical perspectives, with a wide range of intellectual traditions represented. Students will learn, for example, about what Shakespeare can teach us about integrity, or what thinkers in the classical Indian tradition thought about wisdom. Here is a summary of all the modules.

Learning How to Educate for Virtuous Intellectual Character

In addition to the Anteater Virtues modules that are aimed at our undergraduates, there is also an additional module that is aimed at faculty and graduate teaching assistants who wish to learn more about the pedagogical thinking behind this initiative. Entitled ‘Educating for Virtuous Intellectual Character’, this module is available on Canvas alongside the other Anteater Virtues modules. Developed by educational experts with experience of educating for virtuous intellectual character, this module provides an overview of the theory behind this pedagogical approach and offers practical guidance about how to incorporate this methodology into your teaching. You can access all the Anteater Virtues modules on Canvas, including the training module.

Incorporating the Anteater Virtues in Your Classroom

Faculty and instructors can support the UCI Anteater Virtues project by encouraging students to use this valuable educational resource. This can be done in one of the two following ways:

• Option 1: Make Use of the Anteater Virtues Modules Directly: Faculty can integrate the Anteater Virtues modules into their courses by requiring students to take them as part of the course or by letting them take it for extra credit. In either case, faculty are encouraged to add some further course-specific assignments that dovetail with the Anteater Virtues modules, such as asking students to write a short reflective essay on how what they have learned in the modules relates to the course content. It’s up to you which modules you require for your course, but as a guide the introductory modules are best used in lower-division courses while the advanced modules are more suited to upper-division courses. So, for example, for a lower-division course you might require your students to take the introductory modules only, while for an upper-division course you might require your students to take, say, only those advanced modules devoted to the topic of ‘Intellectual Virtues in the Information Age’. You can make use of option 1 by getting your students to self-enroll in the Anteater Virtues modules (which thereby makes all the modules available to them on their Canvas page). For confirmation that students have completed the relevant assignments, you can request that students submit a screenshot of the completed assignments once they are done.

• Option 2: Make Use of the Anteater Virtues Module on ‘Integrity’: Alternatively, faculty have the option of making use only of the Anteater Virtues module devoted to the intellectual virtue of integrity—we have created a dedicated Canvas course space specifically for this purpose. As with option 1, this could be required as part of the course or could be offered for extra credit. Similarly, faculty are encouraged to combine the use of this module with an additional course-specific assignment, such as asking students to write a short reflective essay on the importance of integrity in the context of the course they are taking.

Just like option 1, you can employ option 2 by getting students to self-enroll for this particular Anteater Virtues module. For confirmation that students have completed the module, you can request that students submit a screenshot of the completed assignments once they are done.

Further Information

Further information on the UCI Anteater Virtues project is available on the Canvas course space and also at the project webpage.