What’s New
- 🎥 Join us for a special screening of the 2024 Emmy winner for Outstanding Nature Documentary Path of the Panther, on Wednesday, November 5 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in Carswell 111 (Annenberg Forum). There will be a Q&A with award-winning filmmaker and editor of the film after the screening. Learn more about this event here.
- 🚀 LAUNCH is an orientation course for incoming MD students at the School of Medicine to connect them to the resources they will need for their personal and professional development. Watch the mini-documentary to learn more about the impact on the Class of ’29.
- 💸 Faculty in the graduate and professional schools at Wake Forest can now apply for a Travel for Interdisciplinary and Community Engaged Learning (TICEL) Travel Grant. Application review begins October 24, 2025. Apply today!
- 💰 What if higher ed shaped not just what students know, but who they become? Our Educating Character Initiative is offering grants ranging from $50K to $1M to help institutions across the U.S. integrate educating character into the heart of their offerings. Read the RFP.
“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
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:
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.
