When Anna McEwan arrived as dean of the Orlean Beeson School of Education at Samford University in January 2020, she inherited a vision statement promising to graduate students who were not only professionally competent but also people of excellent character. Her first question to faculty cut straight to the gap between aspiration and practice: “I know you measure competence—test scores, pass rates, licensure rates—but how are you addressing excellence in character? We all know that’s difficult to measure, but what are you doing intentionally to address that side of the coin?”

The first challenge was convincing faculty that character formation was already their work, whether they named it that or not. Teacher education faculty, in particular, pushed back. “It will be hard to add character ed into a packed curriculum,,” McEwan recalls them saying. Her response was direct: “You can’t not do character ed. It is there, whether you acknowledge it or not.” 

The reframe that finally landed was connecting character to dispositions, something accreditors already required and faculty already assessed. “You’re talking about dispositions all the time,” McEwan told them. “We’re talking about dispositions, guys. You’re already doing that. You’re already even attempting to measure that.”

From there, the school developed a set of eight to ten professional commitments, rooted in four school-wide core values (integrity, respect, responsibility, and humility) that every degree program adopted. These are not aspirational posters on a wall. Students are assessed against them early in their program, at the midpoint, and at the end, and the results drive real conversations. McEwan describes a telling example: if a student is failing to collaborate honestly in a group project, faculty have both the language and the mandate to address it directly. 

“It gives us an opportunity to say, let’s talk about this. This is not demonstrating the character and commitments that we’ve said we value, and that we want you to embody as a future teacher,” she said. The same commitments are embedded in the observation instruments used to assess students during their field placements, out in actual schools, with actual students.

In the Educational Leadership master’s program, the integration goes even further. Students take three courses dedicated entirely to character: Foundations of Character, Building the School, and Assessment of Character. They also complete the “Defining Issues Test,” a validated moral reasoning assessment, at the start and end of the program. The growth has been striking, says Kara Chism, associate professor and Chair of Educational Leadership. 

“I knew we would see growth on it, but it’s really been amazing, the growth from when they start the program to when they end it. Even some of those who are really high to begin with, they grow,” Chism said.

Students don’t just learn what character is; they practice building it, running through the same activities and frameworks they will later use with their own staff and students. “We don’t just tell them, you need to have core values,” Chism explains. “We go through a process for students to experience it.  We do it as a class. So they’ve got tools in their toolbox to be able to go into a school and do this themselves.”

The ripple effect is beginning to show up in the data. McEwan notes that the school is currently tracking how many Beeson graduates have gone on to pursue State or National Schools of Character recognition for their own schools. “Our graduates are trying to build their own communities of character and infuse that into their school communities,” she said.

Holding all of this together are two faculty positions McEwan created early on: a Character Scholar in Residence and a Character Leader in Residence, each carrying a course release and a title that signals, inside and outside the institution, that this work is real and valued. Kara Chism, who holds the Leader in Residence role, coordinates the faculty book study, a community advisory group that draws alumni, school partners, and students together to give feedback on the school’s character work, the annual Character Convening (now in its seventh year and drawing 60 to 80 participants), and the school’s year-to-year character development plan. Clara Gerhardt, the Scholar in Residence, focuses on helping faculty turn their work into publications, recognizing that busy faculty often do interesting work they never find time to write up.

“I wanted to see the work sustained,” McEwan said. “What could I do? I could provide some teaching release time, and I could provide a title that indicated, both internally and externally, that these were our people, our movers and shakers in this arena.”

“We are small,” she adds, “but we are quite committed.”