What do these schools – our national leaders in character education – have to offer the rest of us about the importance of ongoing reflection and continuous growth? Here are two key lessons learned.
Continue reading →

Summer suggests time to relax and catch up on your reading. Whether you’re eager to start that fun beach read or to tackle that classic you’ve heard so much about, we thought you might want to consider adding a character education book to the mix.
Continue reading →

By Dr. Gregg Amore, Associate Dean of Students for Student Development DeSales University, and Pennsylvania State Schools of Character Coordinator

Education comes in many shapes and forms. We have early childhood education, kindergarten, elementary, middle school, high school, trade school, college, graduate school, post-doctoral programs, certificate programs and the latest is badges. The main focus is always to equip the student with knowledge and skills necessary to perform competently in in their chosen area of endeavor. In our myopic focus, on a narrow skills set, we frequently overlook the real engine that drives success – CHARACTER.

This is why our mission at DeSales University is, “Developing minds to conceive it, and character to control it.”  Competence, without the character to control it, often results in disastrous consequences.

All educators have a role and responsibility for the development of the whole person. It is essential that students fully understand and embrace the comprehensive development of their character. This is only possible if the educators model, teach, and develop the character of those entrusted to their care.

Educators frequently believe that character development is the role and responsibility of the family or the church. Character strength and virtue are often considered soft-skills and difficult to measure; thus, not deserving of the educators time and energy. Comprehensive student development is the responsibility of every educator.

Unfortunately, college is often the place where education becomes the most specialized with little emphasis on character. Professors are rewarded for research and publication. The old “publish or perish” mantra is still alive and well. Some say a specialist is that “person who knows more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing.” Is this really the kind of person higher education should be unleashing onto society?

College is often the last opportunity for our educational system to make a significant impact on the on young people before we set them on to their career path. Thus, it is most critical that we equip them with the necessary character qualities that will enable them to not only perform competently but also, direct that competence for the greater good.

Will they leave our ivy covered walls with a sense of humanity and a desire to leave the world better then they found it? Will they have the emotional intelligence to understand and manage their passions and those around them? Will have the courage of their convections and the strength to respectfully agree to disagree, to find the common ground, to discover the better way, to create the synergistic solution? Will they perform their duties in a responsible manner and create a confidence in those around them that they are reliable? Will they have a sense of justice and citizenship and treat all people fairly and kindly? When the going gets tough well they have the resilience to stay the course? Will they understand, appreciate and strive for artful excellence? Will the find strength in humility and forgiveness, and opportunity in crisis?

These four critical years are often the last opportunity to mold our students into leaders of competence and character. We must resist the urge to believe that our only responsibility is to provide the subject specific content and leave the rest up to chance. We must embrace this challenge, because they will all lead, even if it is to simply lead their family; which is the most significant leadership role.

Research tells us we remember best things we study first and things we study last. It is commonly called primacy and recency effect. So then, it is the responsibility of colleges and universities to be impactful in the arena of character development. We in higher education have the highest calling because we have the last opportunity to make a lasting impression.

The inaugural “Leaders of Character Camp” launched June 10-15. A partnership between the Character Education Partnership and United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado Springs, CO, the camp offered a mentoring and leadership training program for teenagers.

Read article about the inaugural “Leaders of Character Camp” >>

By Mark Hyatt
President & CEO
Character Education Partnership

We who knew the late Sandy McDonnell, the former CEO of McDonnell-Douglas who died last month at age 89, certainly have been heartened by all the national coverage of his lifetime achievements in the aerospace industry and his global success as a businessman. But really, at most, that only tells half the story of this inspirational man. His other life passions—i.e. ethics and character—arguably warrant equal time (at least) for the lessons they hold both for Wall Street and Main Street.

As Sandy often said, “we in the business world don’t want young people coming into our employment and communities who are brilliant but dishonest, who have great intellectual knowledge but don’t care about others, who have creative minds but are irresponsible. All of us in business and the community need to do our part in helping build young people of high character. There isn’t a more critical issue in education today.”

One of his final acts reaffirmed his commitment to that core belief. Just hours after his death, we at the nonprofit Character Education Partnership—which he helped to found in 1993—learned that Sandy had bequeathed a very generous sum to our national organization. This is a fitting symbol of his devotion to a subject that consumed not only his retirement, but most of his life; a journey that saw him rise from Eagle Scout to junior engineer on the Manhattan Project to chairman of a multinational corporation that employed tens of thousands.

As an Air Force fighter pilot and squadron commander, I came to know Sandy through his aircraft, so he became a hero to me. When I logged more than 1,200 hours flying and preparing for combat in the McDonnell Douglas RF-4 Phantom II jet, my admiration for the man behind these great airplanes only grew. But as I would find out years later, Sandy was much more than a captain of industry. He was a passionate and tireless advocate of character education for students of all ages throughout America. In the relay race of life, he wanted to make sure we never “dropped the baton” of good character between generations.

I first met Sandy in 2000 when I ran the Center for Character Development at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. To my delight, I soon discovered that the same man who contributed so much to America’s aviation history was just as concerned about the type of people who built and maintained his great products, who piloted them and who rode in them as passengers. In his mind, everyone was connected.

That ethic was apparent in his management and leadership at St. Louis-based McDonnell-Douglas, where he integrated character education and training into company programs for all employees—even top management. As he told me once, to him “it seemed that most leadership failures in America are character failures.”

With that in mind, after Sandy officially retired as chairman of his company board, he threw himself full-time into character education, establishing the ‘CharacterPlus’ program for K-12 schools in the St. Louis area. Not long after, he founded the Character Education Partnership (CEP) in Washington, D.C., where he only missed one board meeting prior to last month. And he never stopped dreaming of future successes.

Last summer, as I prepared to step down after 10 years as a public school superintendent in Colorado, Sandy called me to St Louis for a meeting. He told me that he wanted me to take the controls at CEP and steer it in a bold direction that would greatly broaden its impact and firmly establish it as a clearinghouse for best practices in promoting good character and cultivating a school culture of excellence and a social climate of respect. If I would accept his challenge, Sandy also wanted me to take character education beyond grades K-12 to colleges and universities. “Character building is a lifelong effort and higher education must take its role seriously in teaching college students to be more than just excellent engineers, doctors, lawyers and managers,” he explained. “As future leaders, they must learn to be ethical and good always—on and off the job, at home and at work.”

Sandy also urged me to take CEP beyond our borders to international neighbors who have similar needs for character education. And lastly, he asked me to sharpen the focus of CEP on character based leadership. He felt that “doing the right thing” must start at the top. “How will we ever have ethical and good people if the leaders are not modeling good behavior?” he asked.

In January, I stepped into the job that Sandy asked me to take. And now, in the wake of his passing, I feel the awesome responsibility of carrying out his wishes and honoring his rich legacy, which extends well above and beyond aviation. In his final public statement, released upon his death this week, Sandy McDonnell wrote, “So when you are sad and sick at heart, go to our friends and relatives and do good things.”

“Do good things.” I, for one, will do my utmost to fulfill the final request of this American icon. It is my honor to have known him and my privilege to help the organization he founded to create a more “just and compassionate” world.