This site will look much better in a browser that supports web standards, but it is accessible to any browser or Internet device.

Skip Navigationskip menu and banner
University of Wyoming

About Student Affairs

Conceptual Foundations: Student Development

The development of the student within the institution may be defined within the context of seven dimensions of development:

1. Cognitive/Intellectual Development
Imparting knowledge to the student is only one aspect of cognitive/intellectual development. Teaching students how to diagnose and solve problems as well as contemplate life’s circumstances is equally important. Most traditional students, upon graduation from high school, enter an institution of higher education with a tendency to see the world as black/white, good/bad, right/wrong, etc. The college experience should be designed to help a student become truly reflective and thoughtful in utilizing the knowledge acquired to attain wisdom.

2. Moral/Ethical Development
The most fundamental levels of moral/ethical behavior have people making decisions because some authority figure has given them a mandate or in order to stay out of trouble with the law. A more internalized and integrated system of moral/ethical thinking and behavior has the student making decisions based on not only personal welfare but the welfare of family, communities, the state, and the nation. The student’s understanding of and allegiance to a higher power is often a major part of moral/ethical development.

3. Social/Cultural Development
Not infrequently, students enter an institution of higher education with the rather restricted belief that their experiences and perceptions of their society and culture in which they have been raised are superior to anything that might exist elsewhere. As a result of the college experience students will ideally be exposed to a wide variety of social and cultural circumstances that will provide a national and international perspective essential for succeeding in today’s multicultural, multiethnic society. A study of and an appreciation for the strength of diversity in a nation such as the United States might well play a critical role in enhancing students' appreciation of their own culture and society.

4. Physical Development
The typical student entering an institution of higher education is likely to take good health and physical well-being for granted. A goal of the college experience is to transform unintentional practices with regard to one’s physical self into a variety of intentional practices designed to have the body and mind serve the student with health, vitality, and vigor throughout one’s life.

5. Aesthetic Development
Students’ experiences with art, dance, music, theater, architecture, and their physical environment must be broadened through the college experience to build a broadened and enhanced sensitivity to the various forms of beauty and excellence in the world about them. This enhanced sensitivity will inevitably lead to a richer, broader, and fuller life.

6. Interpersonal Relatedness Development
The most successful persons in the world of work, the family, the community, and in the state are those who are able to move beyond a self-centered orientation and to incorporate the effectiveness and joy that comes through service to others. In addition, the ability of an individual to develop and manage an intimate relationship over a long period of time provides the foundation for the integrity of the family as well as for the altruistic service to others that is so essential to true success in life.

7. Identity Formation
Students who graduate with a baccalaureate degree will ideally carry with them a strong and well defined sense of self that includes a self esteem that prepares the graduate to be successful in the home, in the work place, and in the community. This sense of self provides a degree of self confidence that unlocks the capacity to be a contributing member of society. One’s identity includes such elements as the selection of a major and a career, decisions regarding behaviors in which the individual will and will not engage, and it incorporates all of the six dimensions of student development noted above.