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Document Details :

Title: Sexual Ethics at a Catholic College
Subtitle: Curricular and Extra-curricular Challenges and Responsibilities
Author(s): RAVIZZA, Bridget Burke , MASSEY, Julie Donovan
Journal: Marriage, Families & Spirituality
Volume: 20    Issue: 2   Date: 2014   
Pages: 306-316
DOI: 10.2143/INT.20.2.3066760

Abstract :
This paper is a collaborative effort of a theologian-professor and director of campus ministry to reflect on how Catholic colleges can create a safe environment in which young people may develop into mature sexual persons and help students integrate their faith commitments with their sexual identity and choices. After describing the sex-saturated environment in which American college students are immersed, the authors explore the ways in which faculty, staff and administrators at Catholic colleges might best assume their responsibility to those students, in the curricular and co-curricular realms. The authors advocate a classroom pedagogy enriched by student experience, magisterial teaching and the Catholic intellectual tradition, interdisciplinary and ecumenical perspectives, and virtue ethics. They further describe co-curricular practices that support students’ formation of conscience, actively build relationships of trust, and meet students in their questions. They conclude by calling on those in Catholic higher education to support their students in developing mature sexual identity and ethics by providing mechanisms of support for such work, building a culture of dialogue, and practicing the virtues of courage and hospitality.

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