Letter from the Directors

Dear Friends,

Aristotle famously said that a human being “is, by nature, a political animal.” After a fraught election year, many of us may lament just how “political” human beings are, but Aristotle meant something much broader. He believed human beings are naturally communal beings whose flourishing is tied up with the flourishing of their communities. Individual character, in other words, cannot be isolated from meaningful community. 

This communal approach informs all of our work in the Program for Leadership and Character. Since our inception, we have worked not only to form the character of individual students but to nurture a culture conducive to such formation. We are pleased to report that, in 2024, we made even more progress toward forming communities of character at Wake Forest and beyond. 

First, our work at Wake Forest continues to expand in innovative and exciting ways. This year, we facilitated more than 16,000 engagements with students, faculty, staff, and community members in the College and professional schools. Now that “Leadership, Character, and Integrity” has been identified as a priority in all three pillars of our university’s strategic framework, more departments, divisions, and offices are exploring creative ways of integrating leadership and character, and more students are flocking to our courses and programs. As one leading scholar said publicly at a recent conference, Wake Forest is seen by many as “the exemplar” of how to embed character across an entire institution. 

Building on our strength has enabled a second major development this year: the significant expansion of the Educating Character Initiative, which is sparking a national movement to educate character in U.S. colleges and universities. The appetite for this work has been extraordinary. Thanks to the generous support of Lilly Endowment Inc., we granted almost $18 million to more than 70 institutions in 2024, with expectations to impact more than 200,000 people over the next three years. 

Finally, we have continued to reach beyond higher education into the professions. Law firms, hospitals, schools, corporations, and community institutions – from children’s museums to youth development organizations – are looking to our Program to learn how to educate character. Wake Forest’s School of Law is increasingly seen as the premier institution for leadership and character in the law, and our School of Medicine and Department of Engineering continue to be models of how to support students’ holistic growth in character and purpose. As calls for ethical leadership increase, these professions, in particular, are ripe for transformation, and we are energized by how our work in professional education – supported by the Kern Family Foundation – is catalyzing a broader conversation on character in public life. 

As we work to transcend our political divisions and respond to rapid changes in technology, we believe – resolutely – that educating leaders of character can help us to reimagine, reinvigorate, and re-enchant our efforts to realize the common good when the good seems increasingly less common. 

We are grateful to count you as partners in this urgent work and excited about how, together, we can continue to build the communities of character that our world so desperately needs. 

Sincerely,

Michael Lamb

Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character

Kenneth Townsend

Executive Director of Leadership and Character in the Professional Schools

Jennifer Rothschild

Director of the Educating Character Initiative