Designing Environments for Character Growth
March 1-3, 2027
Hilton Dallas Lincoln Centre, 5410 Lyndon B Johnson Fwy, Dallas, TX 75240
Overview
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.
We seek proposals grounded in innovative practices, case studies, research, and lived experiences that illuminate how environments can be intentionally designed to foster character growth among leaders, educators, faculty, staff, and students. We especially welcome proposals that bridge K–12 and Higher Education perspectives, reflecting Advancing Character’s commitment to strengthening character development across the educational continuum.
Conference Strands
Designing environments for character growth requires attention to many conditions at once. The conference program is organized around six strands, each reflecting a distinct dimension of that work. Presenters will be asked to identify the strand(s) that best aligns with their proposal.
- Designing for Purpose, Culture, and Shared Language: Examining how institutions make character visible, nameable, and lived. Proposals might explore the following questions: How might schools and universities articulate and sustain a shared sense of purpose? How does institutional mission connect to the daily experiences of leaders, educators, and students? How do vocabulary, narratives, rituals, and norms carry meaning and make character pursuable rather than merely aspirational? How does culture either reinforce or contradict stated values, and what does it take to shift culture intentionally when purpose has become unclear, contested, or reduced to outcomes alone?
- Designing Structures and Systems: Examining the institutional conditions that surround teaching and learning, including how time is allocated, spaces are configured, programs are architected, and policies are designed to support character growth. Proposals might explore: How do structural decisions shape the daily experience of students and adults in ways that either enable or impede character development? How can institutions audit the alignment between their stated values and their operational reality? How can K-12 schools, universities, and programs build and sustain the structural conditions that make character education possible at scale?
- Designing for Leaders: Exploring both the formation of leaders and the environments leaders create. Proposals might examine: How can we support leaders at all levels develop their own character, sense of purpose, and capacity to build trust? How can that inner formation translate into institutional culture and practice? How can you support leaders to develop the knowledge, dispositions, and relational capacities to build environments where character education can take root and endure?
- Designing for Educators and Staff: Focusing on the adults whose daily practice and inner lives shape every environment students inhabit. Proposals might examine: How do K-12 schools, universities, and educator preparation programs develop and support professionals with character in mind? How can professional development and faculty formation connect to a deeper sense of purpose and meaning? How can educators build the trust and relationships with students that become the foundation for character growth?
- Designing for Students: Examining how environments are intentionally shaped to support student character formation and flourishing. Proposals might explore: How do schools and universities design for student voice, agency, and leadership? How does character development connect to college, career, and life readiness in ways that build intrinsic motivation rather than external compliance? What does a developmental understanding of adolescence and young adulthood tell us about the environments students need at different stages?
- Designing Curriculum and Co-Curriculum: Examining how character is embedded in what K-12 and higher education institutions teach and how they teach it, across academic content, instructional design, and extracurricular programs. Proposals might explore: What can it look like to embed character meaningfully throughout the curriculum? How could specific pedagogical approaches bring character to life in practice? How can institutions assess whether their academic and co-curricular experiences are producing meaningful character growth?
Key Dates
- Proposal Submission Deadline: September 30, 2026 at 11:45 PM Central Time
- Notification of Acceptance: October 29, 2026
All submissions will be peer-reviewed using standardized rubrics.