A Cross-Sector Collaboration
Advancing Character’s Annual Conference serves as the premier gathering or leaders from research institutions, higher education, nonprofit organizations, service providers, and K-12 schools and networks for three days of collaborative learning, meaningful dialogue, and partnership building.
This unique conference breaks down silos by intentionally connecting:
- K-12 Practitioners bringing classroom and school-level expertise
- Researchers sharing cutting-edge findings and theoretical frameworks
- Nonprofit Leaders and service providers supporting character initiatives in communities nationwide
- Higher Education Faculty preparing the next generation of educators and leaders
In addition to insightful presentations, our conference emphasizes interactive engagement through table dialogues, hands-on workshops, and collaborative sessions. Participants don’t just attend—they contribute, share challenges, exchange proven strategies, and leave with both practical tools and lasting professional relationships.
Each year’s conference explores a timely theme that advances the field while addressing current educational challenges. Through research presentations, case studies, and practice-focused workshops, attendees gain insights that are immediately applicable to their work in character education.
In an educational landscape often divided between theory and practice, our Annual Conference creates rare common ground. Here, university researchers learn from classroom teachers, nonprofit leaders share resources with school administrators, and innovative practices are tested against rigorous research—all in service of better preparing young people for lives of purpose and contribution.
Join the conversation that’s shaping the future of character education.
Character does not develop in isolation. It is shaped by the environments we create, the relationships we cultivate, the systems we design, the language we use, and the opportunities we provide for individuals to practice character and purpose. Character formation is not the work of a single class or program. It is developmental, requiring intentional design across culture, curriculum, and institutional life.
The 2027 Advancing Character Annual Conference, Designing Environments for Character Growth, invites educators, researchers, leaders, and practitioners to explore how intentional environments influence character formation and human flourishing. Whether in classrooms, schools, universities, organizations, or communities, the conditions surrounding individuals profoundly affect how character is developed, nurtured, and sustained.
Conference Strands
Designing for Purpose, Culture, and Shared Language
Examining how institutions make character visible, nameable, and lived.
Designing for Students
Examining how environments are intentionally shaped to support student character formation and flourishing
Designing Structures and Systems
Examining the institutional conditions, including how time is allocated, spaces are configured, programs are architected, and policies are designed to support character growth.
Designing for Leaders
Exploring both the formation of leaders and the environments leaders create
Designing for Educators and Staff
Focusing on the adults whose daily practice and inner lives shape every environment students inhabit
Designing Curriculum and Co-Curriculum
Examining how character is embedded in what K-12 and higher education institutions teach and how they teach it