Building Citizens for Good

Character

Students reflect on the Aggie Core Values and personal purpose by participating in a growing list of curricular and co-curricular activities offered as part of their student experience.

• Traditions at Texas A&M
• Service-focused Recognized Student Organizations
• Hollingsworth Center for Ethical Leadership
• Flippen Leadership Institute
• Haynes Teacher Corps

Additional opportunities – that are application-based or offered in certain times of the year – also qualify and continue to expand.

• National Ethics Case Competition
• AI-Enabled Exploration of Personal Purpose
• Character-Based Citizenship courses
• TRACE Lab for Global Citizenship
• Opportunities for Reflection on Existing Aggie Traditions and Core Values

Skills

Across Texas A&M, critical skills of civil discourse, constructive dialogue and media literacy are facilitated to meet differing or opposing viewpoints with respect and integrity.

• The Aggie Lyceum
• Leadership of Recognized Student Organizations
• High-Impact Experiences
• Student Affairs Transformational Experiences
• Together We Dine™

Recurring events, courses and student groups to support engagement in meaningful conversations offers additional engagement opportunities and more will qualify as the program grows.

• Civil Discourse Symposium (Spring 2026)
• Expanded Aggie Lyceum Offerings

Message from the Director From Brigadier General (Ret.) Kim Field

As Texas A&M approaches 150 years as a land-grant institution, we are recommitting to the mission that has set Aggies apart: educating students not only for successful careers, but for lives of service and responsible citizenship.

I am often asked, what exactly is the Citizenship and Service Program? A student on the Citizenship and Service Student Committee made a clever analogy. You want to bake a cake. So, you assemble the ingredients you have, go to the store for the ones you don’t — and you still don’t have a cake. You have to intentionally combine the ingredients. That’s what we are doing with the “good citizen” program at Texas A&M. Raising awareness of all the existing opportunities, aligning them, filling a few gaps and rewarding students for the things employers actually want to see.

My own commitment to this work was shaped by my education from West Point and more than 30 years of military service. It was also shaped by a mother and sister called to teaching, by colleagues in the Foreign Service committed to showing the goodness of America to the world and so many others. I like to think I know it when I see it — and what I see here at Texas A&M is truly extraordinary.

The Citizenship and Service Program is not a building or office. It is a shared commitment. Our intention is that every Aggie will engage with the program in meaningful ways, carrying the spirit of civic friendship from campus into Texas and beyond. Because Texas A&M is a force for good — and because now, more than ever, our country needs Aggies.