Psychology Professor Receives Grant to Implement Character Education in Learning at Seton Hall

Fanli Jia, Ph.D., associate professor of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, has received an award from Wake Forest University through its Educating Character Initiative (ECI). Founded in 2023 and supported by the Lilly Endowment Inc., the Wake Forest initiative seeks to strengthen character education in higher education. It's Capacity-Building Grants program provides institutions with grants of up to $50,000 to advance character education in ways tailored to their unique communities and contexts.

Jia's project, Building Capacity for Character: A Character Across the Curriculum (CAC) Fellows Program, focuses on faculty development aimed at expanding character education across Seton Hall. The program is co-facilitated by Denise Vigani, Ph.D., associate professor of Philosophy, whose expertise in virtue ethics helps provide the program's theoretical foundation.

Seton Hall already incorporates character education through its Core Curriculum courses (CORE I, II and III), which students complete throughout their undergraduate experience. While character education is present in these courses, Jia believes the current approach is fragmented. As he explains, “the problem is that this work is piecemeal” and “it lives in individual courses, individual programs and individual faculty.” He hopes students will encounter character education throughout their academic experience, not only in Core Curriculum courses. As Jia notes, “the Fellows Program equips faculty across every discipline to design for character in the courses students take the rest of the time.”

To address that challenge, the CAC Fellows Program will bring together 10 faculty fellows from departments and colleges across the University. Each participant will redesign a course to integrate character education directly into the classroom and prepare it for piloting. Jia estimates that the inaugural cohort will reach approximately 300 Seton Hall students during its first year.

Although the program is designed as a one-year initiative, Jia anticipates a lasting impact. During fall 2026, fellows will participate in five seminar sessions that combine conceptual framing, case discussions and hands-on design work. In January, participants will attend a half-day retreat focused on syllabus revision and course development. Fellows will also receive two individual consultations to map their courses and troubleshoot their planned pilot offerings. In spring 2027, participants will implement their redesigned modules in a course section. Jia also plans to establish a monthly learning community that will continue after the formal program concludes.

Jia says the program will provide participants with “a shared vocabulary rooted in virtue ethics and practical wisdom” that can be adapted to a wide range of disciplines. While the specific applications may differ, the underlying goals remain consistent across fields.

As Jia explains, “a biologist and a journalist design different assignments, but both can say what they’re designing for.” Faculty members will apply the program's principles in discipline-specific ways. Jia offered several examples: “responsibility and respect for human dignity in gene editing for the biologist; compassion in patient intake for the nurse; intellectual humility in debate for the political scientist; cultural humility in cross-cultural work for the psychologist.” Though expressed differently across disciplines, these approaches share a common commitment to character development.

Jia's long-term vision is for character education to become “part of how Seton Hall educates students.” By equipping faculty with the tools and resources needed to intentionally incorporate character development into course design, the program seeks to strengthen and expand an important aspect of the University's educational mission.

Beyond the initial 12-month program, Jia hopes to institutionalize the initiative and establish the CAC Fellows Program as a permanent faculty development offering. He envisions each cohort mentoring the next, resulting in 40 to 50 trained faculty members across at least eight departments by the program's third year. At that point, the program would have reached a substantial number of Seton Hall students and created a growing community of educators committed to character-centered teaching.

For Jia, the ultimate measure of success extends beyond participation numbers. “The measure of success is that a Seton Hall graduate, years later, can point to multiple courses where they learned to practice integrity or intellectual humility, not just heard of it,” he said.

The initiative also reflects Seton Hall's Catholic mission. As Jia explains, “character education isn't an add-on for a Catholic University; it's part of what we've always done.”

Categories: Education