The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest

Wake Forest’s Educating Character Initiative launches new effort to strengthen communities of character nationwide Funding from the John Templeton Foundation and Lilly Endowment Inc. will create a structure to bolster a movement that has taken hold across higher education.

The Educating Character Initiative (ECI) is launching a new effort to strengthen communities of character nationwide.

Wake Forest’s Educating Character Initiative launches new effort to strengthen communities of character nationwide Funding from the John Templeton Foundation and Lilly Endowment Inc. will create a structure to bolster a movement that has taken hold across higher education.

Last weekend, we hosted our Women’s Student-Athlete Retreat! Led by Assistant Director of Programming and Research Scholar Corey Crossan and Assistant Director of Leadership and Character in Athletics Wendell Dunn, the retreat empowered women student-athletes to lead with confidence, authenticity, and purpose.

Throughout the weekend, participants reflected on their personal journeys, strengthened their leadership skills, and built meaningful connections with one another through interactive sessions and activities. They also put their learning into action through a hands-on community service project, working together to restore a community mini library and prepare furniture for individuals transitioning into permanent housing.

We're so pleased to bring together educators from Wake Forest University and 20 institutions from across the country for our annual Character Across the Curriculum: Course Development and Redesign Workshop this week! Sixty participants are learning to use backwards design principles to create or rebuild virtue-development supportive courses with Program for Leadership and Character and Educating Character Initiative staff. Day one kicked off yesterday with sessions that defined educators' values as educators (facilitated by Elizabeth Whiting and Cristy Guleserian), explored environments that support character growth (facilitated by Aaron Cobb), and explained the backwards design process (facilitated by Betsy Barre). Michael Lamb, Senior Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, will present on the Seven Strategies of Character Development.

We're looking forward to seeing the design changes these educators make to their courses and sharing the outcomes with our community this fall!

The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest’s Michael Lamb lays out the case for character in our public and political lives — based on what the founders taught us about keeping our republic.

Read more in our America from the Forest series: bit.ly/USA250CharacterWFU

Congratulations to our first cohort of graduates from the Leadership and Character Certificate Program!During the celebration, Executive Director Cristy Guleserian and Senior Director of Program Administration Kathleen Stimely recognized the 72 graduates and shared words of gratitude for their hard work and dedication.

"Wake Forest University’s Character and Leadership program teaches students to practice virtues, including compassion, curiosity and courage. It shows them how to reflect on their personal experiences and to wrestle with difficult ideas through dialogue with others ... Basically, it’s not being a scoundrel."

Read more from Inside Higher Ed :

How to Instill a Love of Learning in Students Showing students how to be curious is a hard-to-quantify return on investment for a college degree, but one that pays lifelong dividends.