Center for Character & Citizenship

09/03/2026

🎧 PRIMED to Compete is now available as an audiobook!

We’re excited to share that "PRIMED to Compete: Coaching for Character", by David L. Shields, Marvin W Berkowitz, and Pete Paciorek, is now available in audiobook format!

Sports can build character—but it doesn’t happen automatically. PRIMED to Compete offers coaches a practical approach to intentionally creating sport environments where competition becomes an opportunity for character growth, positive relationships, performance, and well-being.

Now you can listen to the book on the go! 🎧

Learn more and access the audiobook here:

Listen to the audiobook PRIMED to Compete, written by David Light Shields;Marvin W. Berkowitz;Pete S. Paciorek, narrated by Brandon Po***ck.

08/27/2026

The 2nd Africa Regional Conference is underway this week in Nairobi, Kenya, hosted by the Centre for Character and Leadership. The conference brings together scholars, educators, policymakers, and practitioners from across Africa and beyond to explore how we can intentionally cultivate virtues and character strengths in educational leadership.

Yesterday, our Co-Director Melinda Bier (Ph.D) shared insights on Cultivating Virtues for Leadership (CViL), a servant leadership framework she developed to support educational leaders in cultivating virtues such as humility, noble purpose, gratitude, and courage.

The conference is creating a meaningful space to share research, learn from one another, and reflect on how character and values education can contribute to ethical leadership and human flourishing across Africa.

With one more day to go, we’re excited to see the conversations, connections, and ideas that continue to emerge from this important gathering.

For more information about the conference, visit:

The Centre for Character and Leadership will host the 2nd Africa Regional Conference from August 26-28, 2026 in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference invites scholars, educators, policy makers and practitioners to reflect on how to intentionally promote cultivation of virtues and character strengths in con...

06/11/2026

Earlier this week, the Center for Character and Citizenship had the privilege of hosting a two-day Restorative Practices Training facilitated by Pat Ciccone and Jo Ann Freiberg.

The training brought together educators and school leaders from across the region to explore restorative practices as a relational approach to building strong, healthy, and connected school communities. Rather than focusing primarily on rule-breaking and punitive consequences, restorative practices emphasize repairing harm, fostering accountability, and strengthening relationships among all members of the school community.

Throughout the two days, participants engaged in meaningful conversations, hands-on activities, and practical applications designed to help them cultivate school cultures grounded in trust, respect, and belonging.

We are incredibly grateful to Pat and Jo Ann for sharing their expertise and passion, and to all of the educators who dedicated part of their summer to learning and growing together. Your commitment to creating schools where every student and adult can flourish is truly inspiring.

Thank you for making these two days such a rich learning experience. We look forward to continuing the conversation and supporting educators as they bring restorative practices back to their schools and communities.

06/02/2026

Over the past year, the Center for Character and Citizenship (CCC) has had the privilege of working on a transformative international initiative made possible through the generous support of the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

Since July 2025, this project has brought together partners across the Americas around a shared purpose: expanding the reach of PRIMED, an evidence-based framework for whole-school transformation grounded in more than 25 years of research and practice at the CCC. PRIMED is designed not simply to improve academic outcomes, but to cultivate the flourishing of human goodness throughout educational communities.

Last week, from May 27–29, CCC hosted an international convening in St. Louis with partners from Universidad Panamericana (Mexico), Coschool (Colombia), APTUS (Chile), Polaris (Brazil), CharacterPlus® (USA), Become (Spain), and Dandelion (Argentina). Together, we worked to design a system for training and certifying expert bilingual PRIMED Facilitators who will support schools and educators across the Americas. The three-day convening was facilitated by Marvin W Berkowitz, creator of the PRIMED framework.

The days were intense, filled with deep dialogue, collaborative work, shared learning, and meaningful conversations across cultures and contexts. What stood out most was the sense of common purpose and commitment to supporting educators and students in becoming their best selves.

We are deeply grateful to the Templeton World Charity Foundation for believing in this vision and making this work possible. We are especially thankful to Fiona Gatty, the program officer for this project, for her tremendous support, wisdom, and contributions throughout the convening.

This initiative represents much more than the development of training materials or certification systems. It is about building a global community of educators committed to relationships, intrinsic motivation, empowerment, ethical leadership, and human flourishing. We leave this convening inspired, energized, and deeply thankful for the people and partnerships making this work possible.

05/14/2026

🚨 5 Weeks Until the PRIMED Institute in Character Education (PICE)! 🚨

Are you an educator or school leader ready to strengthen your school’s culture and deepen character development across your community?

Join us this summer for the PRIMED Institute in Character Education (PICE)—a five-day immersive experience designed for leadership teams committed to building schools where virtue, servant leadership, and character are lived every day.

Through interactive sessions, collaborative learning, and hands-on planning, participants will:
✅ Deepen their understanding of character education and school culture
✅ Strengthen leadership as a team for meaningful schoolwide impact
✅ Develop a clear, actionable plan to cultivate and sustain a culture of character

This is a unique opportunity to learn alongside a community of committed educators and leave with practical next steps you can implement right away.

🔗 Learn more & register today—spaces are limited: https://characterandcitizenship.org/primed-institute-application

05/11/2026

Last week, we had our second CEEL session of the year! CEEL (Character Education for Educational Leaders) is our year-long academy for principals and school leaders in the St. Louis region who want to strengthen character education and school culture in their schools.

This session was led by Dr. Melinda Bier, Co-Director of the Center for Character and Citizenship, who introduced us to Servant Leadership and the CViL model (Cultivating Virtues in Leaders). It was a meaningful time of reflection and conversation about what it looks like to lead with character, purpose, and care for others.

Our first session this spring was with Dr. Amy Johnston, and we are so grateful for the opportunity to learn from experienced practitioners who have truly lived the work.

One of the most meaningful parts of CEEL is the opportunity for school leaders to come together, share experiences, support one another, and remember that they do not have to lead in isolation.

We are deeply grateful to The Kern Family Foundation for their generous support, which makes this work possible.

03/10/2026

We’re happy to share this opportunity from colleagues at the BRIGHTS Center at Baylor University.

The Center is currently inviting applications for a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to collaborate on interdisciplinary research projects related to virtue development, moral character, and human flourishing in emerging adulthood. The fellow will work with scholars such as Sarah Schnitker, Karen Melton, and Brittany Tausen on research supported by major funders.

This is an excellent opportunity for early-career scholars interested in character development, spirituality research, intervention science, and higher education programming, while gaining mentorship, publishing experience, and leadership opportunities.

📌 Learn more and apply:
https://ejof.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/BaylorCareers/job/19851/?utm_medium=jobshare&utm_source=External+Job+Share

Please feel free to share with colleagues or students who may be interested.

The BRIGHTS Center at Baylor University invite applications for a full-time Postdoctoral Research Fellow to work with faculty running grants through the BRIGHTS Center (e.g., Dr. Sarah Schnitker, Dr. Karen Melton, Dr. Brittany Tausen) on projects related to virtue development, moral character, and h...

02/25/2026

We’re excited to share an important update about the Journal of Character Education.

Now published by Emerald, the journal has been indexed for the first time in its history—a major milestone that increases its visibility and impact in the field. In addition, all content is currently free to access through December 2026, making it easier than ever to engage with research and share it with colleagues.

Have something to contribute to the field of character education? The Journal of Character Education is actively welcoming submissions that explore moral, civic, intellectual, and performance character in research and practice.

Learn more, read, and consider submitting your work to help advance character education worldwide:

The Journal of Character Education is a leading source of cutting-edge information about character education research, theory, practice, and opinion. We define character education broadly to encompass all educational approaches designed to nurture students’ knowledge, motivation, skills, and behav...

02/24/2026

We’re excited to share that the Center for Character and Citizenship has joined the Global Character Alliance (GCA) as a Founding Member!

The GCA, launched at The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues Annual Conference this January, brings together organizations from around the world committed to advancing character and values education through collaboration, research, and policy work. We’re honored to be part of this growing global community working to support human flourishing in schools and society.

If you’d like to stay connected with updates and insights from character education initiatives worldwide, you can subscribe to the GCA’s bi-monthly newsletter here: https://globalcharacteralliance.org/subscription-newsletter/

02/03/2026

We are proud to share that our Co-Director, Dr. Marvin W Berkowitz, was honored to be the third author featured in The Legacy Series—a collection highlighting influential voices in character education by Character.org.

For The Legacy Series, Dr. Berkowitz contributed a special reflection titled: “On Metaphors & Mantras, Minefields, and Morality.”

🗣️: “Having labored for nearly half a century in the fields of moral, character, values, virtue, and human flourishing development, I have learned that while the soil is fertile, it is also complex and challenging to cultivate well… I welcome this opportunity to offer some navigational guidance for educators who are interested in effectively ‘nurturing the flourishing of human goodness.’”

We are deeply grateful for Dr. Berkowitz’s leadership and lifelong commitment to character education, and we are honored to see his voice and wisdom represented in The Legacy Series.

Read the full reflection here: https://character.org/the-legacy-series-marvin-berkowitz/

It’s easy to post a list of core values on the refrigerator. It’s much more difficult for parents to be consistent. Consistency lets children know what to expect and what is expected of them. Of course, children will push boundaries but inconsistency from parents confuses children.