Seton Hill University has received an Institutional Impact Grant of $438,000 from The Educating Character Initiative (ECI), a part of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University, which is funded through a grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

Seton Hill is one of 33 institutions nationwide that were awarded a total of $15.6 million through the competitive grant program to educate and embed character development in their curriculum and student programming.  

This is the second year in a row that Seton Hill has received a grant through The Educating Character Initiative Last year, the University used a $50,000 grant to create a comprehensive definition of character education at Seton Hill and an institutional development plan that coordinates various existing efforts in character education across campus.

The latest grant, which will span three years, will fund a new project, “Welcoming, Learning, Celebrating, Serving: Character Education at Seton Hill University,” a comprehensive character education initiative grounded in the institution’s four pillars.

“Seton Hill is grateful to Wake Forest University’s The Educating Character Initiative and the Lilly Endowment Inc. for recognizing Seton Hill’s work in building character development in our student population through this Institutional Impact Grant,” said President Mary C. Finger. “Through this grant, Seton Hill will be able to strengthen the ways we integrate the four pillars of our mission into our curriculum so that our students will enter the world equipped to recognize the dignity of every person and to serve others in meaningful ways.”

The project will embed character education throughout the undergraduate experience by revising the First Year Seminar and vertical Liberal Arts curriculum, developing a new upper-level course on character, and launching an archival research program focused on the student newspaper, The Setonian. These efforts aim to foster virtues such as hospitality, humility, gratitude, and service, while connecting character formation to both academic and co-curricular experiences.

By integrating character education across courses and research, Seton Hill aspires to cultivate graduates prepared for ethical leadership and lifelong learning rooted in liberal education, community, and the fundamental dignity of every human being.

Sarah Marsh, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English and Director of Curriculum Development for Setonian Mission, and Casey Bowser, archivist for the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill and Seton Hill University, will serve as the principal investigators for the three-year grant program.

More information about The Educating Character Initiative at Wake Fores University and all the grant awardees can be found here.