As a public, land-grant, R1 institution, NC State’s College of Engineering prepares graduates to apply technical expertise in service of the public good. Our engineers design systems, technologies, and solutions that affect communities, infrastructure, the environment, and economic vitality across North Carolina, the nation, and the world. In this context, engineering decisions are rarely only technical. They often require judgment under uncertainty, collaboration across differences, resiliency when faced with challenges, accountability to multiple stakeholders, and navigation of competing priorities. These are the times where engineering decisions have human consequences and an individual’s character matters.

Character education helps prepare students for these moments by focusing on the human dimensions of engineering practice. Rather than treating ethics as a standalone topic or a single course requirement, character education attends to how professional habits, values, and judgment develop over time through experience, reflection, and interaction in authentic contexts. It asks not only what students know, but how they make decisions, work with others, and understand their responsibilities as engineers serving society.

Importantly, this work builds on what many College of Engineering faculty already do. Team-based projects, design experiences, mentoring relationships, ethical thinking, and community-engaged learning all shape students’ professional identities, often implicitly. In a land-grant setting, these experiences are frequently tied to real-world constraints and public-facing outcomes. Character education makes these influences more visible and intentional, giving faculty shared language to reflect on how teaching and mentoring practices shape who students are becoming as engineers.

A growing body of research supports this approach. Scholars in character education and moral development emphasize that character can be developed through repeated practice, reflection, dialogue, and the environments in which students learn, but not through isolated instruction. This research has been synthesized into seven research-based practices for character development, developed through programs such as Wake Forest University’s Program for Leadership and Character. A Practical Guide to Seven Strategies for Character Development in Engineering developed from the work of Michael Lamb, Jonathan Brant, and Edward Brooks, summarizes these practices and pairs each with examples of what they might look like in practice with students. 

In engineering classes, character development often emerges through small, intentional shifts rather than course redesign. These may include reframing existing problems to include stakeholder impact, using brief reflection prompts after projects, making expectations for responsible collaboration explicit, modeling how to respond to failure or uncertainty, or creating structures for peer accountability within teams. Research suggests that such low-lift practices can meaningfully influence students’ judgment, teamwork, and professional habits over time.

At NC State, this work is closely aligned with the Entrepreneurial Mindset and the 6C’s framework supported through the Kern Family Foundation. Character grounds curiosity, innovation, and value creation in responsibility, integrity, and concern for others, reinforcing that how engineers think, decide, and act matters as much as what they know, particularly in public-serving roles.

While interest in character education is growing nationally, institutional context matters. Private institutions with religious affiliations or dedicated character centers, such as Notre Dame or Duke University, operate within missions that differ from those of a public land-grant university. NC State’s approach must be grounded in engineering practice, public responsibility, and discipline-based frameworks that resonate across faculty and student populations with a broad range of lived experiences and socioeconomic demographics . Rather than importing models wholesale, our focus is on translating research-informed practices into approaches that fit the realities of a large, public, research-intensive engineering college.

To support faculty interested in going deeper, the College of Engineering is launching the NC State Character Innovation Lab, a day-long, hands-on workshop focused on what character education looks like in engineering and how to integrate it in practical, meaningful ways. Participants will learn from Rich Eva of Duke University, a national leader in character education, and leave with a small, ready-to-implement activity tailored to their own teaching or mentoring context.

Registration and more information are available at the links below.