Empowering instructors to shape the next generation of thoughtful, capable, and impact-driven leaders through character-based leadership education.
What sort of education prepares individuals to lead with creativity, curiosity, humility, and a focus on social good? What sort of education nurtures the types of leaders our communities deserve? These are the fundamental questions we seek to explore through the Penn Leadership Education Institute.
Zachary Herrmann, Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives
About the Penn Leadership Education Institute
The Penn Leadership Education Institute takes a collaborative, research-informed approach to character and leadership development, grounded in the belief that preparing students to lead with integrity, empathy, and purpose begins with supporting their educators. This initiative is designed to empower educators to intentionally integrate character-based leadership education into their academic teaching.
The Institute conducts novel research on character-based leadership development, and designs and delivers innovative programs that support educators and students to define and pursue ambitious leadership visions.
The Penn Leadership Education Institute is funded by an Institutional Impact grant from the Educating Character Initiative (ECI), awarded by Wake Forest University’s Program for Leadership and Character and made possible through the generous support of the Lilly Endowment Inc. This grant program is designed to strengthen the integration of character education within undergraduate institutions nationwide.
Opportunities to Engage
We invite faculty, schools, and educational teams to partner with the Penn Leadership Education Institute through a range of offerings designed to support the integration of character-based leadership into teaching and learning.
The Penn Leadership Education Fellowship
A cohort-based learning experience designed for Penn undergraduate faculty and instructors seeking to embed character and leadership education into their academic courses. Through a faculty-centered professional learning program, the Faculty Fellowship fosters cross-disciplinary collaboration, enriches teaching practice, and cultivates a shared vision for developing future leaders. Faculty participants engage in a collaborative learning community, where they explore frameworks for character development, design course-aligned learning experiences, and contribute to a growing network of educators committed to holistic student development. Over time, this initiative aims to support institutional coherence around leadership education and inspire similar efforts across the field of higher education. Apply Now
Open Enrollment Partnerships
Our team offers customized programming for schools, districts, and institutions interested in bringing character-based leadership development to their educators and students. Inquire to Learn More
Spring 2026 Symposium
Join us for a multi-day symposium open to teams from higher education institutions who are building or enhancing character and leadership education in their curriculum. This symposium offers hands-on learning, access to Penn-designed tools and frameworks, and opportunities to collaborate with our expert team.
At the Penn Leadership Education Institute, we believe that developing leaders of character requires intentional focus, interdisciplinary thinking, and practical application. Our work is grounded in five core University values that guide how we design learning experiences—for faculty, instructors, and ultimately, students.
Each value represents a dimension of character-based leadership, and each prompts critical reflection about how educators can embed these ideas into their own teaching practice.
Leaders are open-minded and curious. They ask big questions and seek new perspectives. They are humble and eager to learn and grow. They engage in earnest with others, even when they see things differently. They seek to deepen their own understanding, not prove they are right. In your classroom, how might you support students to:
Ask and explore big questions?
Test, challenge, and refine their ideas and perspectives?
Engage in challenging topics with others who think differently, in the interest of constructing new insights, knowledge, and understandings?
Leaders notice, analyze, and confront complex problems. They create opportunities. They find new ways to address old challenges, and they focus on making things work in both principle and practice.
In your classroom, how might you support students to:
Identify, explore and construct solutions to thorny problems?
Utilize creativity, innovation, and critical thinking to construct new ideas in service of real problems and opportunities?
Consider the impact their ideas might have on the world?
Leaders understand the power, and the limitations, of their disciplines to make sense of the world. Different disciplines and fields each shed light on unique aspects of complex issues. Leaders appreciate that most pressing challenges cross boundaries. Therefore, leaders call upon expertise from a wide spectrum of sources and embrace innovation and interdisciplinary problem-solving to address these challenges.
In your classroom, how might you support students to:
Understand the power, and limitations, of your discipline or field?
Leverage your field’s tools and approaches in wise, thoughtful, and ethical ways?
Explore and utilize interdisciplinary approaches to complex problems?
Collaborate across disciplinary boundaries?
Leaders are self-aware of both their greatest strengths as well as their greatest areas for growth. Leaders are humble enough to appreciate their shortcomings, and bold enough to chart a path toward improvement. Leaders are resilient and mindful, and gracious with themselves and others.
In your classroom, how might you support students to:
Engage in cycles of feedback, reflection, and revision, creating opportunities for students to better understand their strengths and shortcomings?
Develop a productive sense of self, resilience, grace, and perspective?
Set and pursue meaningful goals?
Leaders lead in service of their communities, organizations, and societies. Leaders focus on improving conditions for others, addressing pernicious problems, and building a more just and inclusive society for all.
In your classroom, how might you support students to:
Embrace an active role in improving conditions within their community or society?
Collaborate and problem solve across divisions and divides?
Reflect on the social issues they care most about, and develop intentions for addressing them?
