Character Across the Curriculum: Equipping Faculty to Design Courses for Educating Character
July 8 – 10, 2024
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem, North Carolina
The Character Across the Curriculum workshop aims to equip faculty to:
- identify clear and measurable character-related learning outcomes,
- design engaging learning activities and assignments that promote students’ growth toward those outcomes,
- develop effective and ethically sound assessments of learning activities’ efficacy in promoting such growth, and
- integrate these outcomes, activities, and assessments into existing or new syllabuses in ways that are appropriate for, and in service of, the disciplinary goals of the course.
The workshop will be led collaboratively by members of the Program for Leadership and Character with expertise in character theory and development, course design, and character assessment and measurement among undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.
We anticipate inviting 12 applicants from the Educating Character Initiative community to attend the workshop this summer. Successful applicants will have all expenses paid for their participation in the workshop, including travel, lodging, and meals during their stay in Winston-Salem.
Additional workshops – both in person and virtually – will be planned in the future. If you are interested in attending a virtual faculty course development workshop and would like notification when one is scheduled, please reach out to us at ECI@wfu.edu, and we will add your name to the list.
Participants
We invite faculty in any academic discipline at any U.S. undergraduate institution to apply for participation in a three-day course development workshop on integrating character into course design. No prior scholarly expertise in character, virtue, or pedagogy is required for participation. The workshop is aimed at faculty who already teach courses with discipline-specific content, who desire to educate the character of students in their courses without compromising that content, and who are uncertain about how to move forward in pursuit of these goals. Applicants who plan to integrate character-related outcomes and activities into courses to be taught in the coming year will be given priority for this year’s workshop.
Application Information
Applications may be submitted through the ECI Course Development Workshop Portal by May 1, 2024. The portal will prompt each applicant to answer several questions about their proposed course, their desired character outcomes, and their plans for teaching the course. Applicants will also upload a current CV and have the option of uploading an existing syllabus for which character integration is desired. We anticipate making decisions about applications by May 8.
Successful applicants will need to commit no more than five hours time pre- and post- workshop for an introductory Zoom call, workshop feedback, and research surveys. They must also be willing to share materials created through the workshop with the Educating Character Initiative (to be used for educational purposes only).
Sponsorship
This workshop is made possible through the generous support of Lilly Endowment Inc. and Wake Forest University.
About the Organizers
The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University aims to inspire, educate, and empower leaders of character to serve humanity. Through innovative teaching, creative programming, and cutting-edge research, the Program seeks to transform the lives of students, foster an inclusive culture of leadership and character at Wake Forest, and catalyze a broader public conversation that places character at the center of leadership.
The Educating Character Initiative is an external-facing project of the Program for Leadership and Character that supports work cultivating character in U.S. colleges and universities. The Educating Character Initiative aims to equip a wide range of public and private institutions of higher education—including but not limited to major research universities, liberal arts colleges, military academies, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, religiously affiliated colleges, single-gender colleges, and tribal colleges—with the resources, funding, and support needed to integrate character education into their distinctive institutional contexts, curricula, and cultures. The broader aspiration is to foster a robust community that supports the education of character within institutions of higher education. For more information on the Educating Character Initiative, visit our website and register for the ECI Community.