Leadership and Character Certificate for University Faculty and Staff

From Research to Reality: Building a Culture of Character Among University Staff

Research on character education in universities often focuses on students and faculty. But as Wake Forest philosophy professor Christian Miller notes in Cultivating Virtue in the University, staff are the culture creators of the university, the people whose daily presence, decisions, and relationships shape institutional character as much as curriculum. This project set out to test whether a discussion-based, reflective learning model (long used by the Program for Leadership and Character with students) could also cultivate virtues like gratitude, purpose, and practical wisdom among university employees.

The idea began as a four-week pilot discussion group on virtue and meaning at work, which filled within 30 minutes of opening registration. Participants consistently said they had never had dedicated space to reflect on character in their professional roles. That response made clear the concept needed to become something sustained, and the Character Catalyst Grant provided the opportunity to formalize and scale it.

The result is the Leadership and Character Certificate Program: a free, six-session certificate open to all faculty and staff, built around three required categories: Character Foundations, Leadership, and Dialogue Across Difference, plus elective workshops. Each 90-minute, expert-led session pairs research-based content with structured reflection and community dialogue, grounded in seven evidence-based strategies for character development.

More than 170 faculty and staff enrolled before a waitlist was needed, representing 57 departments and units across campus, with over 100 attending the foundational session alone. Additional workshop sections were added throughout the year to meet demand, and the program’s first cycle closed with a well-attended celebration recognizing certificate completers.

Formal evaluation confirms the program is working. Using a newly developed, psychometrically validated assessment measure, completers showed statistically significant gains with large effect sizes across all six program learning objectives, and scored significantly higher than both a waitlist control group and a “partial completer” group. Notably, even partial completers showed meaningful gains, suggesting the program offers value at any level of participation. Satisfaction was exceptional: 100% of participants rated the program as good or excellent, and every dimension of the experience (from reflecting on personal practice to applying principles at work) was rated highly.

Beyond the numbers, participants describe real shifts in how they lead and work: reflecting more intentionally, engaging differences with curiosity rather than defensiveness, and treating character not as an abstract value but as a daily leadership practice. As one staff participant from Campus Life put it, the program challenged her to think less about leadership as what a team accomplishes and more about how people experience one another day-to-day, reinforcing that character is built and revealed in small, consistent moments: how people communicate, follow through, and show up.

This program demonstrates that discussion-based, reflective character education is not confined to the classroom. When given the space, university staff are hungry for exactly this kind of work. The attached PDF shows examples of how an institution could adapt this model.