Applications due Jan. 8
Vanderbilt University may submit one application in either the Institutional Impact or Capacity-Building category to The Educating Character Initiative, managed by The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University.
Overview
Through a generous grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University has launched the Educating Character Initiative and invites U.S. colleges and universities to join a broad and diverse community of individuals and institutions to strengthen the understanding, integration and education of character in undergraduate institutions.
The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest understands character generally as “the collection of stable, deep and enduring dispositions that define who we are and shape how we characteristically think, feel and act.” The aim of the program is to help students develop good dispositions or “virtues” of character that foster individual and communal flourishing and to avoid “vices” or bad dispositions that inhibit flourishing. The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest focuses, in particular, on nurturing students’ sense of purpose and virtues of compassion, courage, gratitude, honesty, hope, humility, integrity, justice, kindness, resilience, temperance and wisdom, among others. Different faculty, departments and schools prioritize some virtues more than others and occasionally foster other virtues such as curiosity, creativity and open-mindedness.
In 2024, The Educating Character Initiative will award up to 10 Institutional Impact Grants of between $100,000 and $1 million, as well as 20 Capacity-Building Grants of up to $50,000. Successful grantees will be teams of faculty, staff and administrators at U.S. colleges and universities with outstanding proposals for developing the moral, civic and/or intellectual character and capacity of faculty, staff and students.
Institutional Impact Grants
Up to 10 Institutional Impact Grants of between $100,000 and $1 million will be awarded to institutions that wish to undertake a substantial and sustained effort to educate character in undergraduate populations across their institution. Three grants of between $500,000 and $1 million, three grants of between $250,000 and $500,000, and four grants of between $100,000 and $250,000 will be awarded. Organizations should align the size of the request with the impact of the proposed project and their expertise and capacity to steward the funds efficiently and effectively. Since funds are limited, please design projects that will have the maximum impact using the fewest resources.
These three-year grants will provide support to enable institutional leaders, faculty and staff to infuse character in undergraduate curricula and programming in ways that align organically with their college or university mission, context and culture. Institutional Impact Grants may be especially useful for institutions that have already begun educating character in their context and/or that have faculty and staff with the relevant expertise to undertake a major initiative dedicated to character. We imagine these grants will be focused primarily on coherent implementation rather than initial exploration, though we welcome innovative ideas that have not been fully tested.
Potential project activities could include, but are not limited to, some or all of the following:
- The launch of a new major, minor, certificate program or curricular requirement and/or a co-curricular center, institute or program related to character.
- New faculty, staff or postdoctoral fellows.
- Course or time buyouts, salary replacement and/or summer funding for faculty or staff to devote time to develop a program, initiative or course at their institution.
- Credit-bearing courses and/or co-curricular programming, such as speaker events, discussion groups, retreats and/or workshops for students, faculty and/or staff.
- A faculty/staff seminar that brings together key partners across the institution to discuss the opportunities and challenges of character education and how they might pursue it.
- Honoraria for visiting scholars, educators or experts to generate interest in character education, lead a faculty workshop on character or strategies to educate it, and/or provide insight on how it might be integrated at their institution. (Note: Individual workshops and consulting are available for free from the staff and fellows of the Educating Character Initiative.)
- Books and materials for faculty/staff seminars, reading groups and research on character education.
- Student assistants to contribute to literature reviews, data collection or other tasks.
- Survey administration and participant incentives to collect data from students, faculty and staff related to the impact or viability of projects or initiatives.
- Professional development support, such as travel and registration for relevant workshops that focus on character or character education.
Capacity-Building Grants
Among the persistent challenges identified by faculty, staff and administrators at Wake Forest’s 2021 “Convening on Character in Higher Education” was a lack of resources, including difficulty integrating character across their curriculum or culture without more institutional and financial support. To address this challenge, up to 20 Capacity-Building Grants of up to $50,000 will be awarded to institutions that wish to strengthen their ability to educate and embed character in their distinctive contexts. These grants may be especially useful for institutions that are just beginning to explore how to educate character, that are envisioning discrete projects that do not require substantial funding, and/or that need support to plan for a larger grant application to the Educating Character Initiative or another funding organization in a future year.
Potential project activities could include, but are not limited to, some or all of the following:
- Course or time buyouts, salary replacement and/or summer funding for individual faculty or staff to devote time to planning or implementing a program, initiative or course at their institution.
- Credit-bearing courses and/or co-curricular programming, such as speaker events, discussion groups, retreats and/or workshops for students, faculty and/or staff.
- A faculty/staff seminar that brings together key partners across the institution to discuss the opportunities and challenges of character education and how they might pursue it.
- Honoraria for visiting scholars, educators or experts to generate interest in character education, lead a faculty workshop on character or strategies to educate it, and/or provide insight on how it might be integrated at their institution. (Note: Individual workshops and consulting are available for free from the staff and fellows of the Educating Character Initiative.)
- Books and materials for faculty/staff seminars, reading groups and research on character education.
- Student assistants to contribute to literature reviews, data collection or other tasks.
- Survey administration and participant incentives to collect data from students, faculty and staff related to the impact or viability of projects or initiatives.
- Professional development support, such as travel and registration for relevant workshops that focus on character or character education.
- Funding and time to plan and apply for a larger grant from the Educating Character Initiative or other grant-making institutions.
Eligibility
The project leader(s) must be in or contracted to a long-term faculty or staff position at an accredited college or university in the United States.
All applicants must register as a member of the Educating Character Initiative community.
See the program webpage and full RFP for more information.
Internal submission instructions
Interested faculty should visit https://vanderbilt.infoready4.com/#competitionDetail/1925830 to submit an application for the internal LSO competition and to find additional information about the opportunity. The deadline for the internal competition is Jan. 8, 2024.
Any questions about this opportunity or the LSO process may be directed to VU-LSO@vanderbilt.edu.