{"id":52649,"date":"2025-12-16T10:59:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T15:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=52649"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:01:31","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T16:01:31","slug":"meet-the-first-acc-faculty-cohort-for-national-character-education-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2025\/12\/16\/meet-the-first-acc-faculty-cohort-for-national-character-education-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the First ACC Faculty Cohort for National Character Education Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Austin Community College District (ACC) selected eight faculty members to participate in the first Faculty Institute for Transforming the Faculty &amp; Student Experience: A Framework for Growing Character. The multi-year initiative is supported by a $781,200 Institutional Impact Grant from <a href=\"https:\/\/leadershipandcharacter.wfu.edu\/eci\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wake Forest University\u2019s Educating Character Initiative<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The selected faculty represent a wide range of disciplines that anchor ACC\u2019s core curriculum:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Bryan Port \u2013 History<\/li>\n<li>Jaime Cant\u00fa \u2013 Biology<\/li>\n<li>Eli Ryder \u2013 Creative Writing<\/li>\n<li>Dania Dwyer \u2013 Composition &amp; Literary Studies<\/li>\n<li>Melissa Foote \u2013 Philosophy<\/li>\n<li>Marilyn Wells \u2013 Physics<\/li>\n<li>Kathy Frost \u2013 Psychology<\/li>\n<li>Laura Cortes Franco \u2013 Student Development<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These faculty will lead the first phase of the three-year effort to integrate character education into general education coursework. The initiative aims to help students build intellectual, civic, and moral capacities that support success in college, career, and life. Kelly Greenwood from Mathematics, Ted Hadzi-Antich from Government, and Arun John from Composition and Literary Studies are spearheading this effort at the college.<\/p>\n<p>ACC is one of only two community colleges selected in the nation to receive this recognition. <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2025\/07\/31\/building-character-in-the-classroom-new-grant-program\/\">This milestone advances the work first announced in July.&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Austin Community College District (ACC) selected eight faculty members to participate in the first Faculty Institute for Transforming the Faculty &amp; Student Experience: A Framework for Growing Character. The multi-year initiative is supported by a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2025\/12\/16\/meet-the-first-acc-faculty-cohort-for-national-character-education-initiative\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3930,"featured_media":52225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,13,15,19],"tags":[4317,170,4315,4316],"class_list":["post-52649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-announcements","category-current-students","category-facstaff-news","category-students-and-alumni","tag-faculty-institute-for-transforming-the-faculty-student-experience","tag-grant","tag-national-character-education-initiative","tag-wake-forest"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3930"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}