The Honors College at Cal State LA will partner with Tuskegee University to enhance the understanding, integration, and education of character within both institutions’ undergraduate curricula and programs.

The partnership will be established through a $195,161 Institutional Impact Grant from the Educating Character Initiative (ECI), as part of Wake Forest University’s Program for Leadership and Character and with support from Lilly Endowment Inc.

ECI aims to equip a wide range of public and private institutions of higher education with the resources, funding, and support needed to integrate character education into their distinctive institutional contexts, curricula, and cultures. 

Cal State LA is one of 24 projects among 29 colleges and universities to receive this three-year grant that will develop a vision of character and leadership education.

“We are delighted to join Tuskegee in the honor of advancing studies of character and leadership thanks to ECI’s recognition of the unique dialogue that will take place between Cal State LA and Tuskegee around character and leadership as part of Building the Character Collaborative,” said Kathy Cooke, director of the Honors College at Cal State LA and the grant’s co-principal investigator.

The Building the Character Collaborative will focus on “Designing an Inter-Campus, Cross-Cultural Character and Leadership Education Program Rooted in the Philosophy and Vision of Booker T. Washington.”

The late Dr. Booker T. Washington was the founding principal and first president (1881-1915) of Tuskegee University (formerly Tuskegee Institute) in Alabama. He was recognized for stressing the need to educate the whole person—the hand and the heart, as well as the mind. He also published a book titled Character Building, which is a collection of talks on self-development that he delivered to students and faculty at Tuskegee. 

“We, in the Honors College, are excited about how this grant benefits the university as a whole and its focus on We Are LA,” said Cooke, “even as it advances existing Honors College themes of leadership and learning from our city and environment, what we call ‘Reading Los Angeles’.”

Reading Los Angeles, the theme of Honors College courses and experiences, promotes critical thinking, leadership, and intellectual curiosity through interdisciplinary thinking. Students address a wide range of topics concerning the city of Los Angeles, such as geography, politics, the arts, and culture. 

The Honors College’s cross-institutional dialogue with Tuskegee University, which is among the list of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, aims to further enhance the thinking about character and leadership development.

Cooke will work on this collaborative program with David Hodge, the grant’s principal investigator and director of the Bioethics Honors Program at Tuskegee.

This will further position the Honors College for leadership at the national level in community engagement and character education, which is a component of the work of Excelencia, the Black Excellence Report, and a Minority-Serving Institution committed

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The Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University inspires, educates, and empowers leaders of character to serve humanity. Through innovative teaching, creative programming, and cutting-edge research, the program aims to transform the lives of students, foster an inclusive culture of leadership and character at Wake Forest, and catalyze a broader public conversation that places character at the center of leadership. 

Founded in 2010, the Honors College at Cal State LA offers outstanding students an opportunity to participate in a scholarly community dedicated to inquiry and discovery, creative and critical thinking, and the creation of knowledge that is linked to positive societal impact.

Cal State LA is the premier comprehensive public university in the heart of Los Angeles. Cal State LA is dedicated to engagement, service, and the public good, offering nationally recognized programs in science, the arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education, and the humanities. Founded in 1947, the university serves more than 24,000 students and has more than 250,000 distinguished alumni.