Kindness and compassion are the new buzz words in academia. With Harvard leading the way, 85 top colleges and universities have launched a program to revamp the college admissions process. It's called Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions.
The goal is to shift the focus of the admissions process from being just about achievement to encouraging more ethical involvement. Or, as the Washington Post headlined its story: "To get into college, Harvard report advocates for kindness instead of overachieving".
This new initiative grew out of a Harvard Graduate Education School project called Making Caring Common. It seeks to create a more humane admissions process by relieving some of the test pressures and instead encouraging students to be more caring, responsible and involved at home and in their communities - emphasizing values rather than just academic achievement.
Kindness has always been at the top of my value pyramid. The dictionary defines Kindness as the ability to show and act with compassion, to have, "a warm and generous nature, not one that is harsh or likely to have a destructive effect."
It's what the poet Mary Oliver meant when she wrote that kindness is a miracle - a spirit of caring that sets us apart as human. It’s a practice as well as a value; the ability to reach beyond ourselves to those in need.
It goes beyond please-and-thank-you nicities. It’s demonstrated by friends who open their door at 2 am to children whom the Department for Children and Families have taken from their own home in the middle of the night. It empowers my sister who works with rescue dogs; a friend who with her therapy dog offers cheer to hospital patients, and a neighbor who on her days off builds houses with Habitat for Humanity.
Kindness and compassion often come from a personal experience with pain or suffering. A recent study found people who have experienced more adversity, show more caring toward others. But you don't have to suffer to have empathy with those who do.
Encouraging students to be more aware of others, more sensitive to the challenges facing friends and family will have long term societal effects as well as personal benefits. Nurturing compassion, valuing kindness ... It's a lesson colleges are learning, one they want their students to understand as well.
After all, achievement may be a measure of success, but kindness is the measure of a person.
