About the UCI Anteater Virtues Project
At UCI, we offer 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 sincere individuals.
This is why we have developed the UCI Anteater Virtues Project, a campus-wide initiative designed to help students achieve success 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: curiosity, integrity, intellectual humility and intellectual tenacity. Curiosity encourages students to seek out knowledge and explore a variety of intellectual interests. Integrity pushes students to be honest and avoid self-deceit and the deceit of others. Intellectual humility reminds students to be open to new ideas, to be willing to make mistakes and to admit when they are wrong. Finally, intellectual tenacity bolsters students to keep pursuing an intellectual interest, even when they encounter obstacles or other challenges.
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. The goal of the Anteater Virtues is to show students that their UCI education not only offers them an excellent grounding in a particular subject, but it also helps them develop as individuals and prepares them to succeed on whatever path they take.
Your professors and instructors will be sharing more information with students about the Anteater Virtues throughout the year. You can also self-enroll. Choose between taking the full Anteater Virtues course (which covers all four intellectual virtues) or taking a shorter Anteater Virtues course that is specifically devoted to the intellectual virtue of integrity. You can self-enroll for the full Anteater Virtues course here, and for the Integrity course here.
Further information on the UCI Anteater Virtues project is available here, and also on the Canvas course space.