Abstract
We explored how academic departments, university teachers and students in one research-led university in New Zealand identified and addressed challenges in achieving three particular graduate attributes. These attributes (global perspective, environmental literacy and those aspect of ethics that involve personal social responsibility) are distinctive in that they may encompass values, attitudes and future behaviours, in addition to knowledge and skills. We documented formal processes in each participating department; interviewed university teachers to understand how they conceptualised these attributes and the processes of teaching them; explored student perspectives via individual and group interviews and written responses to verbal questions in groups; held project-based and departmental discussions to help us understand how the diversity of perspectives and processes extant in this institution were understood; and developed resources to explore and support future academic engagement with the issues that have arisen in this research. We discuss a potential mismatch between what this institution's strategic documentation aspires to and how departments and their teachers are managing these expectations, and we link this concern to the academic discourse on roles, responsibilities and capabilities of higher education. Our research has implications for all higher education institutions that express their aspirations or intentions for the values that their students will learn and we propose a research agenda to address our concerns.