The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University inspires, educates, and empowers leaders of character to serve humanity. Built on a decade of groundbreaking faculty research and delivered through the liberal arts tradition, the program takes a distinctive approach: it focuses on both skills and character, on everyday leaders as much as heroic ones, and on community as the context in which character is formed and tested. It is inclusive, pluralistic, and radically collaborative across Wake Forest’s schools and departments.

Programming spans courses on leadership and character available to students across the university, co-curricular experiences that develop the integrity and self-awareness needed to lead well, and leadership and character initiatives embedded in the professional schools. Call to Conversation brings students together over a shared meal to discuss a meaningful topic, building the habits of genuine dialogue and mutual understanding. Wake Forest also hosts conferences to extend the conversation beyond campus, equips other institutions to develop their own leadership and character courses, and conducts rigorous research to assess program outcomes and contribute to the broader field.

That research dimension also drives a second strand of Wake Forest’s Coalition work: a statistical study using data from three administrations of a Wellbeing Assessment to evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on undergraduate student wellbeing, with particular attention to the role of identity, agency, purpose, and supportive faculty relationships. The goal is to help wellbeing practitioners across higher education develop more effective and efficient programs, policies, and practices in the aftermath of a generation-defining disruption.