Repair work is central to the work of character
The ECI’s Aaron D. Cobb and Emily Hunt-Hinojosa reflect on the influence moral repair has on individuals’ and communities’ ability to build character.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
Educating Character Initiative to offer more nationwide character education grants with $44M in new funding
The ECI will extend its impact on character education across the country by offering a new round of grants in 2027 for U.S higher education institutions with support from a nearly $44 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. The grant will also enable ECI to award additional grants in 2026.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News, News
Imagining a Common Good Character model that centers the social
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
Becoming Better: Character, Moral Growth, and the Future of Higher Education
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
What students think about character education
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
“What measure should we use?”
The ECI Research Team often gets questions like the above from educators leading character-related projects. Before discussing assessment tools, we first need to answer a deeper question: What kind(s) of evidence could tell us whether your institution or program is having the intended effect on students?
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
Hospitality, humility, and the common good: Inside the 2025 ECI Project Brief
We’re pleased to share the Educating Character Initiative 2025 Project Brief, a snapshot of our shared work and its direction. This document reflects the ECI Community’s collective efforts and commitment to forming students, institutions, and cultures shaped by character for the common good.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Young people are adrift, and they want a different kind of education.”
“Many American colleges are elevating discussions of character. Wake Forest University has developed the Educating Character Initiative, a national network of colleges committed to putting character at the center of curriculum,” writes Clark Gilbert in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
The critical role of HBCUs in forming leaders of character
United Negro College Fund’s Jelani Favors and the ECI’s Emily Hunt-Hinojosa and Michael Prinzing make the argument that character education efforts at HBCUs have been underappreciated. To kick off conversations around research on the role of HBCUs in educating character, they invite you to collaborate and join the discussion.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
Hope as a Communal Virtue
In the episode of the “How to Ruin Dinner” podcast, Senior Scholar of Character Aaron Cobb discusses hope — not just as a feeling or a fleeting optimism, but as a virtue that shapes character and community.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News