The clinical psychology student recited the facts of the case as if it were a formula. That’s what she had been trained to do, what her peers and professors expected. There was probably a time when this student wondered about the complex and human questions that might lead a person to the moment of diagnosis, but if those questions remained, they were hidden behind the unemotional, analytical veneer demanded by professionalism.

What if high-quality, virtue-based leadership development could reach anyone, anywhere? Leading with Character, a free online course, has begun to scale character-based leadership training across cultures and continents.

It’s Friday early in the fall semester, and a group of students from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business board a bus for what Professor Andy Hoffman calls “a four-hour ride into the woods.” At a retreat center, they surrender their phones and laptops—returned only on Sunday—and prepare for a weekend focused not on team building, networking, or branding, but on discerning their life’s calling.

In 1995, Alabama became one of the first states to legislate character education. The mandate was simple: ten minutes a day focused on 25 traits. Implementation, however, was left up to individual educators—many of whom, like current University of Alabama professor Ben White, barely noticed its effects.

“I went through school during that time,” White recalls. “And I didn’t notice much of a change.”

The early model treated character as a scheduled lesson or a boxed curriculum. For Dr. David Walker, Director of the University’s Center for the Study of Ethical Development, this approach missed the point.

“Character is not a program,” Walker explains. “Character is everything. Character is the way you do business in a school. It's how you relate to each other.”

At Belmont University, the effort to form students of purpose, wisdom, and strong character isn’t an abstract ideal—it’s a lived, campus-wide commitment. Through the Formation Collaborative, Belmont is strategically embedding character formation and whole-person development into every dimension of university life, from academic curriculum and staff leadership to student experiences and institutional culture.