Formation Collaborative Launches Inaugural Cohort for Character Research and Writing

Twenty Belmont scholars join a growing field of character virtue research through a new cohort spanning disciplines

This summer, the Belmont Formation Collaborative welcomed twenty scholars from across disciplines into the inaugural Formation Scholars Cohort for Character Research and Writing.

Leading the group is Dr. Charlotte Witvliet, who serves as the Formation Collaborative’s senior scholar for character, mental health, and flourishing. As a leading voice within the character virtue formation and flourishing space, Dr. Witvliet brings decades of research and clinical experience to the cohort.

She built the program as a place where researchers from different backgrounds, ranks, and experience levels could explore character virtue formation within their respective work at Belmont. 

The cohort convened over three sessions across the summer, beginning with common readings that anchored research in shared language and frameworks. “We began by looking at Rebecca DeYoung’s 'Virtue Development: A Christian Perspective on Character Formation in Community,' which connected work across millennia and disciplines,” Witvliet said. From there, participants worked directly with Belmont’s Lila D. Bunch Library staff to identify specific titles to support their individual projects.

The case for virtue in evidence-based practice

For David Park, Associate Dean for Faculty Success within the Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine, the cohort offered a welcome opportunity to consider the practical implications of values-based behavior frameworks to affect change within organizational cultures.

“Working in the medical field, everything that we do is based on evidence,” Park explained. That instinct led him to question what the current literature shows about the power of values-based initiatives to shift culture. “If the literature finds there is a positive association; that things like character and virtue really do contribute to the long-term flourishing of our organization and the health of the leaders within them, that’s valuable information to know.”

Embodying formation through welcoming accountability

For Elisa Greene, a professor in Belmont’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, the cohort was as much about the process as the research. “Sharing my research with a group of people who were unfamiliar with my project helped me get really clear about my ultimate purpose and the areas I needed to pivot,” she said.

Working as a co-writer on a paper about formation efforts for graduate students across Belmont, Greene was able to practice this sense of collaboration beyond the structured programming of the cohort. Rather than treating that interdependence as a setback, Greene learned to learn into it. “Inevitably, we were dependent upon one another to show up in order to reach the internal checkpoints we set,” she explained. “We extended that same sense of collaboration to others outside of our project and gained so much generous feedback that helped move our project in the right direction.”

Given that much of Witvliet’s own research focuses on the virtue of welcoming accountability, feedback was intentionally incorporated into the design of the cohort. “Throughout the cohort, colleagues embodied character formation through welcoming accountability to one another in how we give and receive thoughtful peer review, all with the understanding that we are continually forming as scholars,” she explained.

Connecting to a global body of virtue character research

The cohort will conclude this summer by giving an opportunity for participants to present their findings through a written paper and poster presentation. Participants will also have support to submit manuscripts and conference presentations this year, with the opportunity to conduct recorded interviews with experts who will further hone their development as scholars.

“We are grateful to The Kern Family Foundation who is supporting this effort to deepen and broaden our engagement with the character formation and flourishing literature across disciplines and professions at Belmont”, said Witvliet.