What’s New
- ⚖️ The Wake Forest School of Law and the Program for Leadership and Character will host the inaugural Leadership and Character in the Law Conference on March 27-28, 2025. Learn more and register here.
- 🗣 Interested in learning more about what divides us and how we can engage those differences constructively? Apply for the Principled Pluralism Fellowship today. You can learn more and apply for the Fellowship here by February 24.
- 📣 The Educating Character Initiative is excited to launch a renewed Invitation to Community and 2025 Request for Proposals inviting U.S. colleges & universities to apply for grants.
- 📣 Thank you to everyone who attended our Educating Character Across Differences: Cultivating Communities of Character in the University. Here’s a recap of some of the highlights.
Our Vision
To inspire, educate, and empower leaders of character at Wake Forest and at colleges and universities across the world.
Our Mission
To use innovative teaching, creative programming, and cutting-edge research to help transform the lives of students, foster an inclusive culture of leadership and character on college campuses, and catalyze a broader public conversation that places character at the center of leadership.
Get Involved
Here’s how you can become directly involved with our Program as a Wake Forest student, or as a faculty or staff member at Wake Forest and other institutions across the country:
Receive regular updates on events and happenings:
“An education that shapes the whole person is both necessary and desired in our world. The Program is vital to our ability to meet this moment and produce leaders for a better future.”
Wake Forest President Susan R. Wente
Who We Are
The Program for Leadership and Character consists of faculty and staff from a diverse group of disciplines and backgrounds who study and assess leadership and character, as well as students who take on the important and challenging work of developing their leadership and character. Our Educating Character Initiative (ECI) is creating a community of educators interested in character on campuses across the country and world.
What We Do
We help faculty at Wake Forest and beyond educate leadership and character in the classroom and across their campuses. We work directly with students through our Scholars and Ambassadors programs, as well as through courses, fellowships, discussion groups, retreats, and special events. We spark public conversations and collaborate with others across the world. And we strive to educate leadership and character in ways that reflect Wake Forest’s motto, Pro Humanitate.
How We Do It
We put character at the center of leadership and ground our Program’s initiatives in seven research-based strategies for developing character. Because character education is not a one-size-fits-all approach, we find value and strength in engaging diverse ideas and partners. And we rigorously assess outcomes to learn what works and how we can improve.
Educating Character Initiative
Learn more about grants, resources, conferences, and learning opportunities provided and curated by our ECI Scholars and staff to educate character within higher education.
Professional Schools
See our approach and impact in law, medicine, and engineering at Wake Forest and beyond.
Resources
The Program for Leadership and Character is built upon the research and scholarly work of faculty at Wake Forest and beyond. Here’s a short list of resources from faculty and staff in our Program that you may find useful as you seek to educate character in your own context.
Stories From Our Program
Leadership and Character Scholar Lillie Sutton uses the poem “Shoulders,” by Naomi Shihab Nye, to reflect on her experience at Wake Forest. Lillie was one of 10 @wfuniversity seniors selected to speak at the Senior Colloquium last week, which was organized by the Office of the Dean of the College.
For Black History Month, our Assistant Director of Leadership and Character in Athletics, Wendell Dunn, took players from @wakefootball and @wakewbb to Speas Elementary School to speak to students. The players talked to the students about prominent Black History leaders and role models who have impacted their lives in a meaningful way. They also led activities for the students to help foster a sense of community. One of those was a “kindness web,” where the students shared compliments and positive affirmations with one another to create a visual of the impact of supporting and uplifting the entire group. #prohumanitate
Last week, our Director of Leadership and Character in Athletics, Wendell Dunn, spoke to @wakefootball first-year players at Top Hat Wednesday. During the workshop they talked about being able to identify the skills, interests, and virtues that are meaningful to them on and off of the football field.
Dunn and two of the players, Jacob Cosby-Mosely (‘28) and Jake Ryan (‘28), shared their thoughts after completing the workshop.
Join @wfureligions for a thought-provoking public lecture by Dr. Caitlyn Olson, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Bucknell University. The talk, titled “A Matter of Orthodoxy: Islamic Theories of Belief Between Religious Studies and Philosophy,” will be held on Monday, February 3 at 5:00 pm in the ZSR Auditorium. We hope to see you there!
Last weekend, we held a retreat for our Leadership and Character Ambassadors. The retreat was an opportunity for our Ambassadors to cultivate meaningful connections, reflect on the experiences that have shaped their character, and to consider the legacies they hope to create. The participants engaged in several activities including a Lego workshop, and a poster workshop where they created digital posters to illustrate the future roles and the leaders they aspire to be.
Tomorrow join @wfu.class for an interactive workshop called, “New Year Same You: Tips for Tackling Procrastination.” This workshop will be held at 6 p.m. in the Wellbeing Center, Room A330. We hope to see you there!
Join us this semester as we reflect on the purpose of college, life, and what it means to live a good life in college and beyond. Sign up for our discussion group called “What’s the Point Anyway?” by Wednesday, January 22. You can sign up for a group by clicking the link in our bio. We hope to see you there!
Rajiv Vinnakota, the president of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, spoke during a panel discussion on the final day of our “Educating Character Across Differences” conference. Among other things, he spoke about the importance of creating a space to make mistakes.
Vinnakota was joined by John Inazu and Rachel Wahl. Emily Hunt-Hinjosa moderated the panel.
Last week, more than 300 educators gathered at @wfuniversity for our "Educating Character Across Differences" conference. The three-day event opened with a keynote discussion with @jesmynward, where she noted that "History is a key to better understand and navigate your present."
On Friday morning, @realirshadmanji led a presentation about "Moral Courage for Messy Times." On Saturday, attendees saw a lively and thoughtful panel featuring John Inazu, Rajiv Vinnakota, and Rachel Wahl. In between, the conference featured 35 distinct sessions on a broad range of topics, including programming, assessment, athletics, community building, and global perspectives. "I learned a lot myself," said our Program`s executive director, @k.michael.lamb. "Our hope is that this [conference] will plant seeds that will continue to flourish in different parts of the country, and even the world."
We gratefully thank everyone who came and shared their knowledge, ideas, and perspectives, along with the supporters and team who made this event possible. As our ECI director Jennifer Rothschild put it during the closing session: "The success of this conference is a tribute to all of you."
@realirshadmanji opened day one of our Educating Character Across Differences Conference at @wfuniversity with a presentation entitled “Moral Courage for Messy Times.” Among other things, she talked about why speaking truth to power may involve speaking to your own ego.
Manji is a bestselling author, an educator, and founder of Moral Courage College (@moral_courage). #ECIconf
Talon Keeler (‘26) shares her thoughts after moderating the student-led conversation with acclaimed novelist @jesmynward.
We are excited to welcome acclaimed novelist Jesmyn Ward to Wake Forest University tomorrow to speak at the Face to Face Speaker Forum and launch our “Educating Character Across Differences” conference at The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University. Doors open at 5pm for the 6pm conversation in Wait Chapel. The event is free and open to the public and we expect a full house, so we recommend arriving early. Hope to see you there!
@jesmynward @facetofacewfu @wfuniversity #jesmynward #facetofacewfu #wfu