EDITOR'S NOTE: The following story was originally published in the latest issue of GCU Magazine, available in the purple bins across campus or digitally. View a press release about the grant here.
The dots that formulate Grand Canyon University’s Christlike character now will connect the campus in a fluid and comprehensive way.
A transformational way.
Thanks to a $10.7 million Kern Family Foundation grant – which follows a $2.3 million Kern gift that funded the Canyon Center for Character Education three years ago – GCU will embark on a five-year program to cultivate Christian character education in its 10 colleges, student life and athletics.
“It’s an opportunity for us to fulfill our mission,” said Dr. Peter Anderson, assistant dean of the College of Theology and Grand Canyon Theological Seminary, who will serve as the center’s executive director.
“We have an institutional call because of the gift we’ve been given by God to steward the students we have, the mission we have, the faculty we have. So I hope the next few years of the center can be an opportunity for us to make plain what kind of character we are talking about when we talk about character. It’s got to be Christlike character.”
CCCE Director Emily Farkas has worked closely with the Kern Family Foundation in advancing the center’s mission to enhance character formation in K-12 schools and assist educators in the advancement of character education.
Last spring, Anderson joined CCCE executives on a trip to the Kern campus in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
“Their mission is just incredibly aligned to ours as a university, so it’s pretty seamless that we would have such a good partnership,” Farkas said.
Dr. Scott Greenberger, GCU assistant vice president of research and grants, played an instrumental role in finalizing the partnership, Anderson said.
One of the goals is integrating the secular Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues framework and GCU’s One Foundation Christian faith into a seamless model. Farkas and CCCE resident director Dr. Ashley Brandon received master’s degrees in character education through the Jubilee Centre, based at the University of Birmingham, England.
“Our resources are heavily influenced by the work they’ve accomplished,” Farkas said.
The curriculum goals include implementing Christian character into all colleges and departments and into at least 30% of each of the 369 academic degree programs, emphases and certificates, which includes more than 7,000 courses.
Christian character training will be provided for all faculty and staff, including workshops, educational opportunities and retreats. Faculty will be encouraged to develop and grow Christian character into students inside and outside the classroom.
After the second year of the grant, all full-time staff and 50% of faculty will have received training on Christian character education directed by the GCU Department of Faculty Training and Development.
CCCE members will meet with student groups, student government and student-athletes to promote Christian character formation, and more than 400 Residence Life staff members will be trained in virtue leadership practices.
The center also plans to increase its engagement with pre-kindergarten and K-12 schools to reach 1,000 students a year.
“It’s going to enable us to not just help our students get those hard skills, but also think about, ‘OK, you’ve got the hard skills, but what does that mean to have faith and hope and love, the most important of Christian virtues?’” said Dr. Meredith Critchfield, dean of the College of Education, where the CCCE is currently housed. “What does that mean to be an entrepreneur with faith, hope and love? What does it mean to be a teacher with faith, hope and love, or a lawyer or a nurse or a social worker?’
“And so that’s what’s so exciting about this work, is that it’s going to take the focus from vocation and expand it even further into vocation with virtue.”
The magnitude of this five-year commitment wasn’t lost on Anderson.
“We have a huge population and opportunity to influence the lives of people who teach in our classes, but then also who learn in our classes,” Anderson said of the university’s 133,000 ground and online students.
The hope is to inspire the campus community to get things done “the right way that matches not only the aspirations of the university, to impact students in a powerful way, to shape faculty and to impact the world, but to do it in a way that matches our mission,” Anderson added.
Sports has been incorporating character education for several years, according to Vice President of Athletics Jamie Boggs.
University Pastor Dr. Tim Griffin has attended monthly Christian leadership meetings with staff and coaches. Student-athlete leaders have had input on themes that foster culture, including this year’s slogan of “For His Glory.”
A trophy is presented to the team most committed to serving the community and engaging with the GCU campus, and coaches are hired who embrace the university’s Christ-centered culture and place an emphasis on service and community, Boggs added.
Among the priorities in this new era for the CCCE is hiring two program managers to focus on student and faculty development and a One Foundation liaison to ensure alignment with GCU’s missional vision, Farkas said.
So far, Farkas has been encouraged by the buy-in from college deans and department leaders.
Critchfield said, “I think if you were to listen to President (Brian) Mueller, or any of the leaders, you can see we’re always trying to help develop great humans. But this is going to allow us to put really specific measures in place and to determine if we’re actually helping and getting the outcomes that we want and really helping our students – but not just our students, also our faculty, our staff and community members – develop virtue in the way that we would hope they would.”
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