The University of Tulsa’s Honors College is among 29 higher education institutions receiving a three-year grant to further infuse character into undergraduate curricula and programming in ways that align organically with the university’s mission, context, and culture.
The Institutional Impact Grants, announced Wednesday, are part of $15.6 million awarded by the Educating Character Initiative and made possible through the generosity of Lilly Endowment Inc. and Wake Forest University.
Colleges and universities, including Harvard, Penn, Notre Dame, Virginia, Purdue, and UC-Berkeley, received grants ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. UTulsa was awarded $585,000 and was able to secure an additional $500,000 gift contingent upon the grant.
“As we prepare this month to officially launch the new Honors College with some of the country’s best and brightest minds, I am proud that The University of Tulsa has secured more than $1 million in new funding to pursue plans that will take the program to the next level,” said UTulsa President Brad Carson. “We want to provide current students with the best experience possible and continue to grow and innovate as we attract more of the nation’s top scholars.”
In its grant proposal, UTulsa outlined two fundamental goals: First, build the infrastructure necessary to better integrate the Honors College’s student life experience with the curriculum and unique mission to educate for character and human flourishing. Second, strengthen the classroom experience by improving assessments, training more faculty in a character-centered approach to the study of classic texts, increasing Honors offerings, and expanding the college’s Humane Letters degree.
“Taken together, these goals will transform the institutional culture at The University of Tulsa, making it stand out as a university where students can pursue research and pre-professional training without neglecting the liberal arts education that prepares them for life,” said Jennifer Frey, inaugural Honors College dean. “This grant will make UTulsa an exemplar of a research university that takes liberal learning in the classical sense seriously.”
Among other initiatives, the grant and additional gift will support three new positions – faculty steward, honors program officer, and service learning coordinator – to imbue the Honors College experience with the guiding principles of wisdom, virtue, and friendship through an active residential community. The new faculty and staff will be charged with creating the holistic environment that extends from the classroom into everyday life.
“Students in honors colleges are typically the next generation of leaders,” Frey said. “We want our leaders to be more than well-credentialed and capable. We want them to be wise, civic minded, and humble.”