“Meeting the Moment in Character Education” deepens and extends the capacity for educating character in U.S. colleges and universities by organizing a collaborative, community-based effort for collective impact anchored in the work of Communities of Impact. The organizational strategy of the effort, along with the proposed knowledge and resource creation essential to this work, addresses conditions that structure character formation efforts among university students. In particular, the collective work of this project will involve organizing Communities of Impact to pursue innovative solutions to particular problems or pressure points for character across higher education.
We will meet these needs by (1) organizing Communities of Impact to facilitate collaborations, knowledge sharing, and resource creation across higher education institutions; (2) providing opportunities for emerging leaders to coordinate efforts at their institutions and across higher education; (3) cultivating the character pipeline to equip a new generation of character educators within colleges and universities; and (4) creating practical resources and research to support character-building efforts in distinct higher education institutions and contexts.
Expanding and solidifying a dense, overlapping network will increase the numbers of colleges and universities engaged in character education, advance the depth and integration of character education within and across higher education institutions, populate a public repository of high-quality resources for educating character, and catalyze a broader movement for character education in higher education.
