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
Current ECI grantees share what helped them develop strong proposals, build partnerships, and connect their ideas to their institutions’ needs. Together, they remind us that this work matters, that there’s room for many approaches, and that you are not alone in the process.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
“We don’t just train people to be doctors or engineers or business leaders; we train people to think for themselves, and that is profoundly liberating,” Duncan Pritchard recently told LearningWell magazine about the university’s character work.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
This fall, George Fox University hosted ECI Community members united in exploring the formation of student character in faith-based higher education. Together, this group of thoughtful leaders represents a growing subset within the ECI Community: faith-based institutions committed to forming students with the qualities they need to serve the common good.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
What does it mean to build the traits of a peacebuilder rather than just theoretically know how to resolve conflict? At Utah State University, a religious studies professor and a political science professor are collaborating to enhance the university’s core curriculum with peace studies pedagogy that’s integrated with character education.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
The Educating Character Initiative announced a request for proposals from U.S. colleges and universities for grants between $50,000 and $1,000,000 to develop the character of their faculty, staff, and students.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
Once a federal Indian boarding school, Fort Lewis College is using its ECI Institutional Impact Grant to address its painful past by “centering character education within a reconciliation initiative that goes beyond atonement to institutional change,” writes LearningWell Magazine.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
In the August installment of our media partnership with LearningWell Magazine, a publication of the LearningWell Coalition, Syracuse University’s “Character Development and Sport Fan Engagement” project is highlighted for differentiating itself from most sports-driven character-building projects by focusing on the fans.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
In an opinion essay for Inside Higher Education, Senior Lecturer of Marine Conservation and Ethics at Duke University Rebecca Vidra—a 2025 ECI Teacher-Scholar Grant recipient—reflects on her work to redesign courses on environmental issues in ways that center the formation of intellectual virtues like curiosity, humility, and resilience.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News
Thanks to the support of Lilly Endowment Inc. and Wake Forest University, the Educating Character Initiative (ECI) has awarded $15.6 million in new Institutional Impact Grants to 28 projects among 33 colleges and universities. Each of these institutions seeks to undertake a substantial and sustained effort to educate character in undergraduate populations across their institutions.
Categories: Educating Character Initiative News