Classrooms That Cultivate Character? Charting an Institution-Wide Approach to Christian Virtue Formation

Christian liberal arts institutions often emphasize the importance of virtue and character development but frequently lack clear, practical models for cultivating and assessing character transformation in the classroom. This paper presents an approach developed within our own learning community to address that gap. We describe: (1) our interdisciplinary process for identifying institution-wide virtues of focus and defining them in ways that are both theologically grounded and suitable for psychological assessment; (2) our institution-wide approach to character education; (3) a psychologically informed intervention strategy that targets five underutilized change modalities—situational/environmental, cognitive, affective/somatic, behavioral, and incentive-based—to reinforce these virtues; and (4) our plans for evaluating the intervention by assessing perceptions of campus “character climate,” the presence of virtue content in individual courses, and Christian character formation among students in classes implementing the five modalities. While acknowledging the contributions of other leading models of character education, we highlight how our approach intersects with and adds to existing frameworks. We also discuss potential applications of our model at other institutions, including other Christian colleges, and share recommendations informed by our own experiences.