In an era of the work world when AI can write your email, draft your business plan and hire (and fire) your employees, Fairleigh Dickinson University has decided to double down on something no algorithm can fake: character.
The university has launched the Institute for Character and Leadership, a new interdisciplinary hub housed within FDU’s Marion Turpan College of Psychology and Counseling, built around a simple bet — that in a world increasingly run by machines, the most valuable skill set left might just be being a genuinely good person.
And who better to run it, than a veteran.
Scott Parsons, a retired U.S. Army officer and former West Point faculty member, is the institute’s founding executive director. He sums up the mission and the vision this way.
“The more sophisticated our technology becomes, the more important our humanity becomes,” he said. “FDU’s vision for humanics recognizes that the future will require more than technical competence alone. It will require empathy, character, practical wisdom, critical thinking and the ability to build meaningful relationships.”
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This is not FDU’s first bet on the idea that kindness and character are worth institutional investment.
Earlier this year, FDU launched its 250 Acts of Kindness campaign, a grassroots effort tied to the nation’s 250th anniversary that encouraged students and staff to give back to their communities — no marketing angle required. The new institute suggests that instinct is becoming a permanent part of how FDU sees itself. https://binje.com/tom-columns/250-acts-of-kindness-how-fdu-is-marking-big-birthday-with-meaning-not-marketing/
So, the ICL isn’t exactly starting from scratch. In fact, it brings four existing FDU centers under one roof: the Center for Character Development, the Empathy Center for Research and Training, the Stigma Free Center, and the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Leadership.
Each keeps its own focus, but now they’re working from the same playbook.
So said FDU President Michael Avaltroni, a leader who is looking to transform higher education in every possible way.
Avaltroni said the move reflects a broader philosophy about what a university degree should actually prepare someone for.
“The creation of the Institute for Character and Leadership reflects our belief that higher education has a responsibility not only to prepare students for successful careers but also to help them develop the human capacities needed to lead, serve and contribute meaningfully to society,” he said.
Benjamin Freer, dean of the Marion Turpan College of Psychology and Counseling, said unifying the centers creates something bigger than the sum of its parts.
“By unifying FDU’s strengths in character development, empathy, leadership and human flourishing, the institute creates an exciting interdisciplinary platform for serving the growth and development of our students and the culture of the University community,” he said.
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This isn’t just a campus club — a wacky idea used to promote the school during a walking tour that is forgotten by the time you hit the bookstore.
The ICL has plans to work with organizations well beyond FDU’s Madison and Teaneck campuses — in health care, business, public service and higher education, both regionally and internationally.
In other words, don’t be surprised if your company’s next leadership retreat borrows a page from FDU’s playbook.
Robert McGrath, director of the Center for Character Development, said the institute builds on more than a decade of research already putting FDU on the map in this space.
“Over the last decade, the character research program at Fairleigh Dickinson has come to be recognized internationally as a leader in the study of character measurement and education,” he said.
“The creation of the institute is the next step in that process, using evidence-based tools to encourage the development of leaders of character, a quality desperately needed in this complex and fast-changing world.”
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The institute’s new home comes with a bit of a backstory of its own.
The Marion Turpan College of Psychology and Counseling was recently renamed in honor of FDU alumna Marion Turpan, following a $6 million gift, the largest single donation in the university’s history.
For Parsons, that setting is fitting for what he hopes the ICL becomes: not an ivory-tower research project, but something people actually use.
“This is not character and leadership studied at a distance,” he said. “We want to put the best research into the hands of students, educators, healthcare professionals, executives, public servants and communities and learn from them in return.”
It may be better put this way: In an era when technology is taking over everything, FDU has found a way to put a little more humanity into the humanities.
