What’s New
- 💬 Interest groups are back! This semester, we will have three groups that reflect on issues of leadership and character in relation to special topics. If you are interested, you can sign up for a group here by Wednesday, October 16.
- Read more about the idea and purpose behind our longest-running discussion group, “What is College For?”, which will return next semester.
- 📣 Join us for our major conference, Educating Character Across Differences: Cultivating Communities of Character in the University, December 5-7, 2024, at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, hosted by the ECI on behalf of our Program.
- 💰The Travel for Interdisciplinary and Community Engaged Learning (TICEL) Travel Grant application is now open to faculty in the graduate and professional schools! Applications are due October 25, 2024, apply today!
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.
Stories From Our Program
It’s all about how you rebound! Join us on Thursday, October 24 from 12-4 p.m. on Manchester Plaza for the Rebound From Setbacks: Academic Resources and Resilience Carnival. This event is an opportunity for students to learn about the free on-campus academic resources that are available to help you succeed. There will be games, prizes and more. We hope to see you there!
❓all answers must be in the form of a question
sign up for interest groups by october 16 at the link in our bio
#Community is the central thread that brings together the new and existing Leadership and Character in the Law Cohort members. This year’s new students describe just how meaningful the cohort is to them and what they look forward to experiencing alongside their fellow members as they progress through law school. #ProHumanitate
The Lam Museum of Anthropology’s annual celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day will feature a screening of “Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya” on Sunday, October 13, at 4 p.m. at the Kulynych Auditorium in the Byrum Welcome Center. The film tells the story of a small group of Blackfeet people and their mission to establish the first wild buffalo herd on their ancestral territory since the species’ near-extinction a century ago.
The film will be followed by a discussion with National Impact Producer Candice Dalsing and CEO of Blackfeet ECO Knowledge Tyson Running Wolf. The event will end with a reception catered by Native Root. We hope to see you there!
Come see Dr. Donovan Livingston (@dlive87) on Monday, September 23rd from 6-7 p.m. in the auditorium at the Porter Byrum Auditorium at @wfuniversity. The event, “‘I’ma put the lil homies on next’: Mixtape methodology and meaning making through hip-hop literacy,” is free and open to the public. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members are all welcome.
This event is part of the Leadership, Equity, & Education Speaker Series. It’s hosted by the EDU Student Leadership Council, and co-sponsored by the Wake Forest’s Department of Education, the Center for Literacy Education, the African American Studies Program, the Program for Leadership and Character, Wake the Arts, the Department of Music, ZSR Library, and the Humanities Institute.
Earlier this month, Assistant Director of Curriculum and Pedagogical Design Nancy Winfrey partnered with the @wfulawschool to create a program that would welcome back our second year law students and provide them with the tools to #flourish as students and as individuals.
Dr. Dan Henry, Assistant Teaching Professor in African American Studies, is teaching a course called Organic Leadership: Lessons from the Black Freedom Struggle. The course focuses on the history of African American philosophies of democratic citizenship and leadership. Here, Dr. Henry talks about Ida B. Wells, one of the thinkers his class is learning about this semester.
This past weekend, Wake Forest graduate and professional students went to Montreat for the Human/Nature Retreat (formerly the Flourishing Retreat) where they took mindful forest walks, created nature art, and participated in a nature writing workshop to build a stronger human-nature connection. Research shows that time spent in nature can make people happier, healthier, and possibly kinder by reducing stress, inspiring gratitude, stimulating creativity, and promoting social cooperation.
It begins THIS WEDNESDAY and continues every other Wednesday at 6 p.m. in Starling Hall. See you there!
Join the Center for Literacy Education for the Leadership, Equity, and Education Speaker Series on Monday, September 23 in the Kulynych Auditorium from 6-7 pm. Dr. Donovan Livingston, Director of College Thriving and Teaching Assistant Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will give a lecture on hip hop as a form of literacy.
Over the summer, we held our Men’s Student-Athlete Leadership Retreat. The retreat was led by Wendell Dunn, Assistant Director of Leadership and Character for Athletics, and Dwight Lewis, Associate Athletic Director, Student Engagement and DEI. We asked the student-athletes to share their takeaways and experiences from the three-day retreat, and here’s what they had to say.
Yesterday we hosted our first Leadership and Character Involvement Kickoff! This dinner was an opportunity for students to meet our Program staff, learn about the work that we do, and the ways they can get involved. “Our hope was for the students to know that we are a resource for them; that this is a space where they can explore not just what they want to do, but who they want to be,” says Roscoe Bell, our program coordinator.
If you missed it, don’t worry! We will host a Wednesday Night Dinner in Starling Hall on September 18, at 6 p.m. where students can stop by for refreshments, meaningful conversation, and a chance to build a community on campus.