Baylor University’s Andrew Hogue and the ECI’s Emily Hunt-Hinojosa share learnings from the Common Good Character Trust. Through the group’s discussions, they discovered that “character-building efforts that aim at the common good need a model of character formation that accounts more fully for institutions, cultures, and broader social forces.”
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
ECI Executive Director Jennifer Rothschild was featured on The Flourishing Leaders podcast, where she discussed character as a social story, hospitality as a leadership practice, and the future of character education in higher education.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
At the 2026 NetVUE Conference, teams from four ECI-supported campuses — University of Dubuque, Bellarmine University, King University, and Belmont University — shared how character, vocation, and mission are woven into daily campus life. Their approaches range from faculty learning cohorts and holistic advising to campus-wide character festivals and communities built on accountability.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
Each semester at Institutional Impact Grantee Radford University, students from across the university gather at the Wicked Festival, presenting original solutions to some of the world’s hardest problems. “Students, community partners, alumni judges, and faculty circulate, ask hard questions, and push back. The students are the authorities.”
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
In the first installment of a new series, Aaron D. Cobb, ECI’s Director of Collective Learning, invites us to consider whether courage is a virtue we can develop on our own. Practicing by ourselves is not enough. We need guides: people who can help shape how we learn and show us what good practice looks like.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
A diverse group of coaches, athletic directors, trainers, and academics came together to discuss the challenges and opportunities of promoting character development in college sports.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
ECI Researchers Michael Prinzing and Juliette Ratchford recently ran a study that investigated what students think about intentional efforts on the part of faculty or institutions to foster their character growth.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
“We’re going to develop the leadership for the next generation of leaders, and we’re going to do it in the ways that we care about when it comes to character,” Chris Marsicano, P.I. for Davidson College’s Institutional Impact Grant and the inaugural director of the Martin Institute for Public Good, recently told LearningWell magazine.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
When Robert J. Hartman began teaching his first-year seminar, “Becoming a Better Person,” in Fall 2023, he set out to help students reflect on who they are, who they hope to become, and how to take steps in that direction. As he built his syllabus, though, he noticed a gap: there simply weren’t enough succinct, engaging resources on character designed for students just starting out.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
In an essay published in The Christian Century, ECI Senior Research Scholar and Associate Director of Partnerships Emily Hunt-Hinojosa considers the texture, complexity, and invitation to character in relationship to power. She offers a unique and nuanced exploration of MLK Jr.’s vision of character, braiding multiple ways of knowing into a story of character and love.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News